The MODIS/AQUA rapidfire website finally had a pass overhead online early this AM of the Ethiopian/Eritrean area volcanic eruption of Nabro, and I have them below. The plume stretches well over 1000 miles now. In the photo below, the Red Sea is prominent north of the volcano.
The zoomed image below the “read more” line is quite dramatic.
I have acquired and cropped the 250 meter resolution scan (thanks to all the reader tips), and the imagery is quite dramatic, and shows the eruption continues unabated:
More details on the eruption here
I’m sure we’ll have a sulfur dioxide estimate, and perhaps an ESA image of it in the next few days. It appears that we are in quite an active period of vulcanism, with several eruptions worldwide in recent weeks.
UPDATE: Reader FergalR gives us this near real-time satellite image of the SO2 plume:
Looks like a Pinatubo redux. Equatorial SO2 has a pronounced effect. The length and volume of the eruption remains to be determined.
Source: http://www.temis.nl/aviation/so2/omi/2011/06/13/omi_vcd20110613_000_srl_lr.png
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This could be considered a Gore Effect:
Hilary Clinton have to redirect her trip due to the Nabro Eruption.
Barrack Obama had to hide tail and run from the Icelandic eruption.
Seems Ban Ki-Moon wasn’t as lucky. He got grounded due to the eruption in Chile.
Where is Gore ?
It really is scandalous that we spend untold billions on climate science, much of it of dubious value. Yet we know almost nothing about this volcano which could dramatically impact the climate.
The reality is we are one large volcanic eruption away from millions dying in a worldwide famine.
What is it now, 4 major eruptions this year? Iceland twice, Chile and now Eritrea? Quiet sun, early winters, early snow, are we hedding for a painfully obvious change in climate not at all driven by emissions of CO2 from human activities? Accoring to the Emirates operator I spoke to today, flights south to Addis Ababa are being affected. No more detail than that, and it could be inaccurate.
Given the widespread lack of good governance in Africa I often wonder about the devastating impact a large volcanic event would have on the population here. At the moment much of Africa is fed by and has medical services provided through aid. In the event of a couple of poor growing seasons the ensuing famine would be appalling.
African governments generally are unable to keep their population safe even during normal times. The onset of volcanic winter would be devastating. The cooling climate added to volcanically induced crop failure will overwhelm many countries but even moreso where good governance is absent.
“Keith Battye says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:23 am”
As an example, people are going hungry in Ethiopia right now. This is not due to inability to produce and feed people, Ethiopia is very fertail, it is directly related to inflation and cost of living increases. People simply cannot afford to buy enough food to feed, not only themselves, but their families too. A complete change from my experiences in as little as 5 years. The Ethiopian Govn’t, the IMF and World Bank, mining companies etc seem to think buildings and roads are the answer. The people are saying “We can’t eat the buildings you are building or the asphalt you are laying.”
Flights are affected in the region.
Actually, our best guess is 1.2K for a doubling of CO2.
Another important point to be inferred form thePinotubo eruption is that climate science once again got a relationship backwards. While temp increases the capacity of air for water vapor, light incident on bodies of water and wet soil drive actual evaporation. Researchers accounted for the drying of air caused by cloud formation, but most of the water vapor decline was likely due to increased cloud cover over oceans reducing this heating mechanism, not the temperature change itself.
Ethiopia/Eritrea is a very active region with fascinating geology.
“John Marshall says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:45 am”
The Afar region, and it;s peoples, are remarkable. Proves, without doubt, humans can survie almost anywhere, even without modern technology.
Flights in to/out of region seriously disrupted in the entire region.
What a ridiculous argument. Nobody has ever claimed that there are no forcings on the climate system. What is claimed by sceptics is that the magnitude of the forcing attributed to anthropogenic CO2 has been grossly over-exaggerated.
Here is a neat website to check out. Its an ash tracking site out of the U. of Alaska, Fairbanks.
http://puff.images.alaska.edu/index.shtml
steven mosher says:
June 13, 2011 at 11:51 am
cross posted
“Heck, even if the sun were to double its output we cannot predict that it will get warmer, because well, Chaos rules”.
Congradulations Mr Mosher on the all time strawman. Of course your entire statement was a strawman, and the poorly understood feedback mechanism, of clouds and the sun may well explain a great deal of variation in climate. In regard to the IPCC claimed 3.5 degreees warming per doubling, this is looking less and less likely all the time..
This plume never reached the stratosphere. The tropopause is defined as where the temp inversion begins at the top of the troposphere. The plume reached between 13-14 km. At that latitude, the tropopause is usually around 17-18km (around 9-10km in the high latitudes) You can check skew plots for the world at this site. Text file is easiest to read. Just set your parameters, and then click the site on the map.
http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html
If you pull the charts from Abha, Saudi Arabia(OEAB), just to the north of the eruption, for around the time of the eruption, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Winds were running from the ESE at 30-40kts at the plume height (50+kts at 15km) which is why it spread so fast to the WNW.
Just came across this site. Good one to use to see if an eruption hit the stratosphere or not at the latitude its at.
Here’s a chart that someone drew up from another blog I visited. Its a pretty good reference as to where the stratosphere is in relation to latitude. It will vary some, though on a daily basis, especially in the higher latitudes.
http://i51.tinypic.com/etz1w3.png
See http://sacs.aeronomie.be/nrt/NRTimg/gome2_vcd_NRT_000_lr.gif for a 24-hr composite near-real-time plot of vertical column SO2.
http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/images/OMI_ME_SO2_DDC2.GIF
NABRO volcano it’s emiting A LOT of SO2!…
Or there are any error in satellite image?
Yeah, a SO2 rich volcano. Nothing into the stratosphere, though. There was another healthy eruption today.
No errors on images..
A LOT OF SO2..
http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/Alert/alert.html
Nabro Eruption intensifying, plume 15.000 mters heading West
http://www.irishweatheronline.com/news/earthquakesvolcanos/nabro-volcano-erupts-again-thursday/20220.html
Fantastic NASA image of Nabro eruption showing lava flow. Any word on how long this eruption will last?
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/06/29/6974738-african-volcano-spied-from-space