The smoke from the eruption can be seen from many places in south Iceland, Iceland’s television channel RUV said in a report.
Iceland’s Meteorological Office also confirmed that an eruption had begun in Grimsvotn.
“All indications are that an eruption will start in this area,” Icelandic geologist Hjorleifur Sveinbjornsson was quoted as saying earlier on Saturday by the local media.
But scientists in Iceland believed that the new eruption in Grimsvotn could be small and would not lead to a repeat of the air travel chaos in Europe one year ago, which was caused by ashes from the Eyjafjallajokul volcano’s eruption.
Located in the middle of the Vatnajokull glacier, Grimsvotn is the most active volcano in Iceland, with major eruptions recorded in 1922, 1933, 1934, 1938, 1945, 1954, 1983, 1998 and 2004. Most of the eruptions lasted one to three weeks.
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From Iceland’s Meteorological Office
Eruption has started in Grímsvötn
An eruption began at Grímsvötn volcano at approximately 17:30 UTC, May 21st 2011.
Eruptions in Grímsvötn start as subglacial eruptions, which quickly break the ice cover. At 21:00 UTC, the eruption plume had risen to an altitude of over 65,000 ft (~20 km). Initially, the plume is expected to drift to the east and subsequently to the north. Thus, the ash is not expected to impact aviation in Europe, at least not during the first 24 hours.
The figure on the right (above) shows an image of the eruption cloud at 22:00 UTC. The image is from the Icelandic Met Office weather radar located at Keflavik International Airport, at 220 km distance from the volcano. The cloud extends above a large part of Vatnajökull ice cap. The line marks the approximate location of Grímsvötn volcano.
The last eruption in Grímsvötn occurred in November 2004. Grímsvötn is Iceland’s most frequently erupting volcano.
The figure below shows tremor activity in Grímsvötn associated with the eruption. Note that seismic activity increases after 17:30 UTC.
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Headlines say UK airspace might be invaded by Tuesday…
[reply]Not according to the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13489944 – please provide a link. RT-mod
Thanks guys. I’m flying Chicago – Brussels on Wednesday. Should be OK, I think.
From the MailOnline Sunday, May 22 2011
Brace yourselves: Iceland’s volcanic ash could reach Scotland in 48 HOURS and rest of UK by Thursday if eruption continues
Superb photos of the eruption.
Satellite info here:
http://www.yr.no/satellitt/europa_animasjon.html
Tantalize, we sure seem to think alike???
Geoff Sherrington, my take is that means there is a lot of steam is in the plume and that steam has made contact with cold air aloft. Ejafyallajökull made massive cloud cover and humidity, some is still aloft. In part from the mostly below stratosphere plumes, but mostly from melting 100 million cubic meters of ice into steam. All eruptions have a large steam component, but some have a massive steam composition like Ejafyallajökull. The recent eruptions in Chile, Alaska, Kamchatka, Iceland, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines and Ecuador (to name a few) all put a lot of steam into the atmosphere. As well as ash and gas aerosols to boost cloud formation. So more more flooding is on the way for some parts of the NH. It’s aerosols and altitude in my humble opinion.
Jón Fríman called it right, I posted 8 months ago that he and others were saying that this volcano would likely erupt this spring.
Oh, pardon my sentence structure, andriodx only gives you a little giggy box. Dragging out the PC hassle. Pardon also to all the galactic cosmic ray heads, but no volcanic eruptions = ‘sunny days that I thought would never end’. Eruptions. = ‘raindrops keep falling on my head’. Simple, though GCR’s may enhance this to some degrees. Since Pinatubo and Cerro Hudson, and particularly since 1995 the eruption numbers and VEI volume has increased and slowly temperatures have flattened and even trended downward a bit. Not that we don’t still have a few hot years when the aerosols are at low altitudes.
Anthony, I think you need a new thread on this with a less unfortunate title now we have seen some flight cancellations..and threat of more over Western europe thanks to winds arriving from Iceland from tomorrow!
Mike McMillan says:
May 21, 2011 at 11:38 pm
At least this is a volcano we can pronounce.
The volcanoes are the easy bit, it’s the glaciers they’re under that are the hard thing!