Iceland Volcano's Ash Grounds European Air Travel

Ch_Omega writes "From the article at CBSNews: 'An ash-spewing volcano in Iceland emptied the skies of aircraft across much of northern Europe on Thursday, grounding planes on a scale unseen since the 9/11 terror attacks. British air space shut down, silencing the trans-Atlantic hub of Heathrow and stranding tens of thousands of passengers around the world. Aviation officials said it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again and said it was the first time in living memory that an ash cloud had brought one of the world's most congested airspaces to a standstill.'" The BBC says "Safety group Eurocontrol said the problem could persist for 48 hours," and the Deccan Herald describes some of the effects on the ground in the volcano's home turf: "In Iceland, hundreds of people are fleeing rising floodwaters as the volcano under the glacier Eyjafjallajokull erupted yesterday again, for a second time in less than a month."

Comments

Nothing unusual

[sopssa]

The ash cloud hit my city a few hours ago (Sweden). Other than the airports closed (and I don't understand why), nothing out of ordinary is going on. Sky a far away is a little bit more yellowish, nothing more. It also doesn't affect breathing as even normal street dust is more dangerous.

Re:Nothing unusual

[cruelworld]

As watching endless episodes of Discovery channel would tell you ash has been responsible for plane crashes in the past. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

Re:Nothing unusual

[nemasu]

They won't let planes fly near ash clouds as a safety measure. Reduces visibility, can wreck the windshield and probably the worst thing is that ash and jet engines don't get along. The reason it's getting so much attention is that there are many many flight paths that go near Iceland as it provides a shorter path between the two continents.

Re:Nothing unusual

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The trouble with ash and aircraft is that, at the high temperatures found in jet engine combustion chambers, ash turns into a delightful material extremely similar to molten glass(you also have the less immediately dramatic; but still annoying, problem of having the ash particles basically sandblasting the surface of the aircraft).

Best case scenario: some rather expensive repairs, including replacing scratched glass and engine parts(or even entire engines).

Worst case scenario: Fiery death.

Re:Nothing unusual

[malloc]

Not crashes, "just" 4-engine failures. All the cases I read about said once altitude was lowered the engines eventually started up again.

Having all your engines fail isn't minor, but it isn't on the same scale as an actual crash.

Re:Nothing unusual

[itsdapead]

The ash cloud hit my city a few hours ago (Sweden). Other than the airports closed (and I don't understand why), nothing out of ordinary is going on.

Here in England you wouldn't know anything was happening. The dust is passing over at high altitude, so its only the planes that are affected. I'm sure we'd have had a very nice sunset if it hadn't been cloudy...

Re:Nothing unusual

[master811]

Did you even read the link you posted?, that flight never crashed, it just lost power to all 4 engines for about 15 mins, but they eventually started up again.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Brett Buck]

They closed the airports because the ash eats up jet engines, and can't easily be detected on radar. It's mostly silica and doesn't have a dielectric constant different enough from air to show up on most aircraft radar. So even if the cloud is thin enough on the ground to take off safely, you are relying on visual indications of the clouds thickening, and your visibility is poor so it's hard to see.

       

Re:Nothing unusual

[FranTaylor]

That ash cloud is basically sandpaper in vapor form. You really don't want to suck it into an engine, aircraft or auto.

Re:Nothing unusual

[jabithew]

It's over London now, entirely unnoticeable here.

Re:Nothing unusual

[LordSnooty]

It's pretty clear now and I imagine astronomers across the country are rejoicing, not too cold either. With no planes it must be a beautiful view in the more remote places.

Re:Nothing unusual

[FranTaylor]

Oh yes losing power to all 4 engines at once is nothing unusual.

Re:Nothing unusual

[IndustrialComplex]

The ash cloud hit my city a few hours ago (Sweden). Other than the airports closed (and I don't understand why), nothing out of ordinary is going on. Sky a far away is a little bit more yellowish, nothing more. It also doesn't affect breathing as even normal street dust is more dangerous.

I'm curious as to how you claim that normal street dust is more dangerous. What do you base this on? Volcanic ash is mostly silicates, and based on what happens when you inhale other silicates (Asbestos) I wouldn't be too keen on the substituting volcanic ash for road dust.

As for why they would close the airports. It is a highly abrasive substance, and is very fouling. Running aircraft through a volcanic cloud is like subjecting it to several years of wear all at once, and not the normal wear that an engineer would design for. You would be running through your engines a very fine abrasive compound and at the same time reducing the performance of your engines as you have displaced some of the air. It can clog your machinery very quickly, especially non-jet engines. (Imagine running a piston engine and adding a highly abrasive and clogging dust to the fuel-air mixture.)

Re:Nothing unusual

[Spliffster]

Well, I just had a beer with my little brother, a BA Pilot grounded here at our home in switzerland.

BA Flight 009 was special because it is the first such incident documented in a modern jet airliner. The pilots were pretty clouless when they suddenly saw funny flares through their front windows (cause by ash particles). "Somke" was reported from the cabin and after some time they piloted a very expensive glider plane (all 4 engines failed). The 747 has a glide angle of something about 1:15 which is very good for a heavy airliner. But with failing speed indicators it is quiet a challange to restart engines midair (windmill effect is used, they need to hold a certain speed before they can inject fuel and ignite it again).

I think these pilots back then did a tremendously good job if one takes into account that they had no fucking clue what was going on (today they have procedures for such situations, my brother showed me his checklist for such cases). And they had a lot of luck. The pilots lost height due to engine failure, decided to do a 180 turn and once the engines restarted (pretty low) they got into the ash cloud again and lost some engines again before they landed with reduced sight (sandpaper effect on the front window) and reduced IFR instrumentation at night.

Cheers,
-S

Re:Nothing unusual

[Amouth]

except for that whole high alt ash cloud.. that won't block out the stars any, nope

Re:Nothing unusual

[StrategicIrony]

Uhm, I think it has more to do with the jetstream, which spreads the ash cloud over Britain.

It's not intercontinental flights that are shut down. It's ALL air traffic over northwest Europe.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Ma8thew]

What?

Re:Nothing unusual

[StrategicIrony]

Especially a high-pressure turbojet.

Frankly, the auto engine's filter will handle the worst of it...

Re:Nothing unusual

[Luckyo]

This is actually untrue. Actual sand is not a problem for a modern jet engine - if you ever bothered to watch the A380 ads, one of the tests on the engine was when they fed a constant thick stream of fine sand into the intake of a running engine, and it was going just fine. It will certainly stress the engine, but it will keep running just fine for a very long time before sand starts to really wear out the internal mechanics to cause serious damage and shutdown.

Problem is that hot ash is actually not sand (which would not be able to stay that high in the air), but actual hot ash. As a result, as it goes through the engine, it coats the fuel feeding system and as it's rapidly cooled by compressed cold air pre-ignition, it becomes a glass-like material that blocks the fuel from getting into combustion chamber. This is what is causing the engine flameout. The reason why keeping the engine shut, putting plane into descent and keeping on trying to restart the engine is current modus operandi is because the glass-like substance that ash forms on the inside of the engine becomes very brittle when engine is being cooled by fast air stream going through it. As a result, when temperature drops below certain threshold, the normal vibration caused by drag and turbulence shatters the brittle mass, clearing the nozzles and allowing for fuel feeding to work again.

This is what happened in the 747 that lost all 4 of it's engines to flameout when flying through volcanic ash in the past. The report should be available to the general public, at least I recall reading it somewhere (though in finnish). In general, ash doesn't really scratch as much as stick to surfaces and solidify into dark glassy mass (which does in fact block the windows as well, meaning pilots would most likely have to land in instruments-only conditions in addition to handling engine flameouts).

Re:Nothing unusual

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

One reason it's not affecting breathing much but is affecting air travel is that it's mostly at high altitude.

Re:Nothing unusual

[SpzToid]

Not only that, but if you read the wikipedia article about the flight, they were calculating clearance required to go above, or around high Indonesian mountains, as they descended steadily without power.

Re:Nothing unusual

[nemasu]

Right, but intercontinental air travel going near Europe is canceled as well, at least from Canada. http://www.aircanada.com/en/news/trav_adv/100415.html

Re:Nothing unusual

[IrquiM]

Was just outside for a fag, and I can still see the big dipper right above me (Chelsea, London) but looking towards Heathrow, the clouds are gathering, and the colour doesn't look good!

Re:Nothing unusual

[cayenne8]

Ok, I know that geography is definitely not my longsuit (I do ok on Jeopardy for most everything else, but God help me if they ask where a river or a country is in general)...but is Iceland that close to the UK and the rest of Europe?!?!

I thought Iceland was up near the N. Pole roughly...how is it effecting the UK?

I'm looking for maps, but it doesn't seem to look that close...?

Ok..just found one map...I thought what is Greenland was Iceland...found Iceland which is east of Greenland..but still, doesn't look close enough to Europe in general to mess with it with volcanic ash?

Re:Nothing unusual

[plover]

I'm curious as to how you claim that normal street dust is more dangerous. What do you base this on? Volcanic ash is mostly silicates, and based on what happens when you inhale other silicates (Asbestos) I wouldn't be too keen on the substituting volcanic ash for road dust.

It is thought that asbestos is dangerous primarily due to the shape of the crystals. Broken asbestos fibers are essentially electron-microscopically sharp daggers that can slice into a living cell wall and cause the reproducing cell to make faulty copies of its DNA.

Silicates in general may not chemically cause cancer, certain physical structures of the crystals might be responsible. And I'm not saying that volcanic ash contains the "safe" kind or the "bad" kind of crystals. But I don't know that you can accurately make a blanket statement condemning all silicates just because asbestos is a problem.

On the other hand, given the choice I wouldn't want to suck in a lungful of volcanic ash, either.

Re:Nothing unusual

[timgradwell]

Reminds me of the old adage - "Red sky at night... volcanic ash in the atmosphere."

Re:Nothing unusual

[atisss]

can wreck the windshield and probably the worst thing is that ash and jet engines don't get along.

I'm not sure what's worse for pilots - broken windshield when they are facing huge blow of wind or no engines.. without engines you can at least sit in the cockpit.

The reason it's getting so much attention is that there are many many flight paths that go near Iceland as it provides a shorter path between the two continents.

Actually everything around Baltic sea is currently no-flight zone. You can check out http://www.flightradar24.com/ to see that there's only single plane over northern part of Europe.

Re:Nothing unusual

[PlusFiveTroll]

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/silicacrystalline/index.html

OSHA seems that exposure to silica in the crystalline form is bad stuff.

http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/ash/health/#chronic

Volcanoes, like the one in Iceland currently erupting release large amounts of the stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera#Volcanic_hazards

Think of the air traffic delay if Yellowstone went off!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry_Ridge_Tuff

Re:Nothing unusual

[TubeSteak]

Here's the anatomy of engine failure due to ash cloud:

1. Ash gets sucked into the engine
2. The ash melts due to the heat of combustion
3. The melted ash/combusted fuel now moves through the various turbine stages
4. As the gas/ash mixture cools, the ash sticks to the turbine blades and turns into glass
5. Engine Failure

The turbine blades in the front have been sandblasted, the turbine blades in the rear are coated in glass, and everything else has been subject to severely unbalanced operation.

Even if you can relight the engines, they will never be airworthy again.

Re:Nothing unusual

[egr]

It's a big ass cloud. Wind blows to the south-east, so Scandinavia and parts of central Europe is covered by the cloud. If I recall correctly, the little Chernobyl explosion's cloud had the most of Europe covered as well.

Re:Nothing unusual

[demonlapin]

It's slightly farther than the distance from Chicago to San Antonio, slightly less than the distance from Chicago to Salt Lake City or El Paso. Tack on prevailing winds...

Re:Nothing unusual

[c 0xFF]

Check out the satellite imagery. The ash plume can easily reach into Europe.

It dissipates as it goes, but does anybody know the "critical density" before it's a problem?

Re:Nothing unusual

[Gordonjcp]

broken windshield when they are facing huge blow of wind

It won't break the windscreen, just sandblast it. Great for bathrooms, not so good for visual approaches.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy to remember which is which. Greenland is almost entirely covered in ice year round, while Iceland is mostly green (in the summer).

Re:Nothing unusual

[VanGarrett]

The ash cloud also caused harm to the windscreen and landing lights, and smoke filled the cabin. Engines 1, 2 and 3, and the windscreen had to be replaced. Ash also got into the fuel tank, and that had to be flushed, and the contaminated fuel disposed of.

Ash clouds destroy planes, and endanger the lives of all crew and passengers aboard. Understandably, the presence of a massive ash cloud over Europe requires that air travel be shut down, until the cloud has passed.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Dogtanian]

It was over northeast Scotland before it ever reached London, and the sunset here was... pretty normal, to be honest. Perhaps slightly more orange than normal, but the light is often very warm-looking shortly before sunset, and if the sky looked slightly dusty at dusk, it's probably only because I was paying close attention.

I was expecting more, to be honest...

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I just had a beer with my little brother, a BA Pilot grounded here at our home in switzerland.

I had a lot with mine, just before landing.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually untrue. Actual sand is not a problem for a modern jet engine

Which isn't what the parent said. Did you just want to wheel out your A380 advert anecdote? :) The parent said hot ash turning into molten glass-like substance is a problem for engines. Which you disagreed with, then repeated!

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, given the fact that those engines were restarted only because of a "miraculous" chemical reaction taking place in cooled engines allowing separation of volcanic ash from the engine bodies, I would say they were awfully close to a crash...

Re:Nothing unusual

[petermgreen]

I'm looking for maps, but it doesn't seem to look that close...?
Note: rectangular maps of the world distort distances. Rectangular maps use some variant of a cylindrical projection* so as you approach the pole east-west distances appear larger than they really are.

Still it is a bloody big ash cloud (note: also because of winds it's neither circular nor centered on the source).

*The variants differ in how they deal with north/south distances. Mercator's projection (the most common afaict) modifies the north/south distances as well so local shapes are correctly represented. Peters projection modifies north/south distances in the opposite way so it preserves area but distorts local shape even more than a straight cylindrical projection does.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Buelldozer]

An automobile's air filter will plug within minutes of being introduced to volcanic ash. Plug to the point of keeping the engine from running.

This was experienced during the Mt. Saint Helen's eruption in the United States. Stores sold out of pantyhose in very short order because people were using them to filter the ash so it wouldn't plug up the regular air filter.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Buelldozer]

All of that typing and all you had to do was go look up silicosis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis

It's VERY BAD for you to breathe in Silica dust whether it's Asbestos based or not. The microscopic crystals plug the lungs and cannot be cleared causing respiratory difficulty or even failure.

Re:Nothing unusual

[owlstead]

It was a nice sunset here in NL, but nothing wildly spectacular. Then again, sunsets rarely are that. It did look a slight bit more red than usual.

Re:Nothing unusual

[John Hasler]

> An automobile's air filter will plug within minutes of being introduced to
> volcanic ash.

Only when there is a great deal of it: enough to impede visibility. The levels we are talking about here might cut the life of your air filter in half. Jet engines are much more sensitive to this sort of dust than internal combustion engines are. They inhale much, much, much more air, it is impossible to filter it, and they run hot enough to melt the silica.

Re:Nothing unusual

[hnangelo]

It also doesn't affect breathing as even normal street dust is more dangerous.

It certainly isn't awful, but it stinks like horse crap all over Gothenburg, probably all over the country as well!

Re:Nothing unusual

[QJimbo]

As Flight 9 approached Jakarta, the crew found it difficult to see anything through the windscreen, and had to make the approach almost entirely on instruments [...] He then called out how high they should be at each DME step along the final track to the runway, creating a virtual glide slope for them to follow. It was, in Moody's words, "a bit like negotiating one's way up a badger's arse".

British Airways pilots, always classy.

Re:Nothing unusual

[tsvk]

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=BIKF+to+EGLL
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=BIKF+to+EIDW
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=BIKF+to+ENGM
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=BIKF+to+EKCH

Re:Nothing unusual

[athe!st]

wind doesn't blow southeast all the time, its due to the high pressure zone to the south of the volcano, air in the northern hemisphere goes clockwise around high pressure systems so the system is blowing all the ash clockwise and over those bits of europe. If it was a low pressure system it would be sending it in the opposite direction

Re:Nothing unusual

[petermgreen]

Interesting map!

It seems if you want to get out of europe atm you should head by train to italy, spain or poland.

Re:Nothing unusual

[mikael]

It was an amazing story. The only part of the cockpit windows not sandblasted into frosted windows was a tiny gap at the top protected by something like a sunvisor. The pilot had to stand up while trying to see where the runway was.

Re:Nothing unusual

[atisss]

I'm not sure about Poland, and why it has plane going to Belorussia right now.

Today (now it's actually deep night - that's why there are so few planes) it was quite empty. However Germany still had lot of planes over it.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Flere Imsaho]

If you were a passenger on a 747 and all four engines failed, I bet you'd find it pretty fucking unusual.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to US readers: "Fag" means a cigarette in the UK.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Went looking for a gay guy, came back with a fat chick named Chelsea and your partner is either mad because she's on top of you? What the hell has this post got to do with volcanic ash, let alone astronomy? Nasty story. Just nasty.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

While modern jet engines will not catastrophically fail due to sand it is a serious maintenance issue and will seriously reduce the life and efficiency of the engine. depending on the type of sand you will actually get slightly different effects but the end result is that after the flight you need to strip the engines and clean each part, which is sufficiently difficult and time consuming that a new engine is ussualy cheaper.
even if safety wasn't a concern I still see the cash straped airlines canceling flights in those conditions.

This of course has no bearing on the effects of ash, which is, despite apperances and protestations to the contrary, not sand.

Re:Nothing unusual

[PigIronBob]

North West Europe more than Central Europe I would say, that would include Scandinavia and the UK

Re:Nothing unusual

[PigIronBob]

All flights from Oz to Europe are cancelled

Re:Nothing unusual

[phantomfive]

I wouldn't be too keen on the substituting volcanic ash for road dust.

Yes, and beyond that, there is even a word for the problems it causes:Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

, although silicosis is more common.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Vectormatic]

it's not the routes over iceland, right now the ash cloud covers large parts of the UK, and the netherlands too, Amsterdam Schiphol airport is currently shut down, no flights what so ever, i imagine large airports in the UK are shut down too, parts of the german and belgian airspace are closed as well..

This really sucks though, my dad had a long weekend in rome planned this weekend, his flight is at 1350 out of schiphol, but KLM has cancelled all flights before 1400, and will probably cancel more later today..

Not to mention all the Danish colleagues here which are no stuck in holland..

Re:Nothing unusual

[TedRiot]

See http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2010/apr/15/volcano-airport-disruption-iceland (click on next below the first image to see how the cloud progresses and how huge it is)

Re:Nothing unusual

[dintech]

"Somke" was reported from the cabin

Ah yes, the icelandic trout. Most modern airliners now have somke detectors for just such problems.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, and why the hell dont governments that can not get air superiority over say us just make huge ash clouds. Im pretty sure a material that works even better and stays say 10 times the amount of time airborne can be developed.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Falconhell]

Bear in mind that there were terminal engine failures during that flight, and the remaining engines were completely stuffed after landing.

The ash melts in the high temp part of a jet engine and condenses to a glass like solid on the rear compressor blades, they were very lucky those engines restarted, and ran long enough for a safe landing.

Re:Nothing unusual

[mr_gorkajuice]

This is actually untrue. Parent didn't disagree and repeat. He pointed out that the statement was obviously flawed, and explained why it accurately described reality.

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually everything around Baltic sea is currently no-flight zone. You can check out http://www.flightradar24.com/ to see that there's only single plane over northern part of Europe.

Showing: 0 aircrafts of worldwide. (NaN %)

Users online: Too many

Re:Nothing unusual

[Anonymous Coward]

The Finnish Air Force have a couple of pictures and an analysis of a couple of F18 jet engines exposed to the volcanic ash on the Internet.

The jets were on a routine training flight in northern Finland while the airspace was still open. This stuff does nasty stuff to the engines even with short exposures, it seems.

Original (in Finnish)
Translation (shitty, but understandable)/a)

Re:Nothing unusual

[itsdapead]

"Red sky at night... volcanic ash in the atmosphere."

Rhyming fail. The correct adage is:

Red sky at night - Iceland alight!

great name

[berashith]

My cat can type words like Eyjafjallajokull too.

Re:great name

[Anonymous Coward]

I nearly used modpoints on that, but couldn't decide whether it's funny or a flamebait ;)

Re:great name

[Anonymous Coward]

But can he pronounce it. It took me atleast a minute and several retakes. Still probably not even close :)

Re:great name

[Kjella]

It's not nearly as complicated as it seems, "fjalla" means mountain and "jokull" glacier so a native would read it more like "the glacier of the mountain Eyja" or "Eyja Mountain Glacier". But like the Scandinavian and German language they build one long word out of it.

Re:great name

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's less of a flamebait and more of an ashbait.

Re:great name

[Jeian]

Gesundheit!

Words like what?

Re:great name

[Anonymous Coward]

Gesundheit!

Words like what?

No, more like Stuhlsatzundhausweg.

Re:great name

[adavies42]

My cat can type words like Eyjafjallajokull too.

But can he pronounce it.

every hairball....

Re:great name

[ibwolf]

It's not nearly as complicated as it seems, "fjalla" means mountain and "jokull" glacier so a native would read it more like "the glacier of the mountain Eyja" or "Eyja Mountain Glacier". But like the Scandinavian and German language they build one long word out of it.

It is even simpler than that as Eyja means island (err, since Iceland is spelled Island in Icelandic maybe that isn't a simplification). It is a reference to the nearby Vestmann Islands, that lie just off the coast from where the glacier is.

So Eyjafjallajökull -> Islands Mountain Glacier.

Re:great name

[Conchobair]

Totally reminded me of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9NP-AeKX40

Re:great name

[Shimbo]

I blame Mattel for changing the Scrabble rules to allow proper nouns. Within a couple of weeks of them doing it we have a volcano in Eyjafjallajokull, and the Kyrgyz president fleeing the country. Coincidence, I think not.

Re:great name

[sp0tter]

das Geschirrspülmaschine!!!!

Re:great name

[CrashandDie]

Dutch is fun too:

- zandzeepsodemineraalwatersteenstralen
- Hottentottententententoonstellingsmakersopleidingsprogramma
- hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliofobie
- Halfautomatischeautobandenventieldopjesetiketplakmachinehulpreperateur

FWIW, these languages don't really have a "longest word", as you can automatically spoon them together.

Re:great name

[mikael_j]

Ah yes, us swedes can play that game as well: "Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten".

Re:great name

[Vectormatic]

just to set everyone's mind at ease, the dutch usually dont use those words :P (except in scrable..)

also, i thought it was "Hottentottententententoonstellings kaartjesverkoperbureaustoelschroefjesfabrieksdirecteur" :)

C-C-Combo!!!

blergh, slashdot doesnt like us dutch "Filter error: That's an awful long string of letters there.", had to insert a space..

Re:great name

[sakura123]

Thank you for your clear explanation ;) Maybe old-germany was the root of icelandic, the long word such as 'Eyja-fjalla-jokull' could be made.

Re:great name

[bazorg]

yeah, they're the ones lobbying for those new Scrabble rules in Europe. They'll be crushed by the mighty Welsh team!

Re:great name

[Carewolf]

We don't need proper nouns to make Scrabble awesome in North Germanic languages. A teacher is "lærer" a teachers assistant is "lærerassistent". The union of teachers assistants is "lærerassistentfagforening" and the chairman of the teachers assistant union is "lærerassistantfagforeningformand", guess what his secretary's title is? ;) These are all completely standard valid words and allowed in the localized versions Scabble.

Re:great name

[Mindcontrolled]

Actually German and Icelandic are in two separate branches of the germanic language family. The indo-european derived proto-germanic split into the northern germanic and the western germanic language groups. Icelandic developed from the northern germanic family via Old Norse, while German belongs to the western germanic languages and is not a derivative of Old Norse, but developed by convergence from a mixture of western germanic languages, which are still present in the form of dialects in today's German.

Re:great name

[M1FCJ]

Tried translating it.

"Nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten"... is too long a word. Try using a shorter word.

So either a typo or pictures or it doesn't exist. Google says so. :)

Re:great name

[mikael_j]

From the last part to the first:

• arbeten = jobs/works
• förberedelse = preparation
• diskussionsinlägg = discussion posts
• system = system
• uppföljning = follow-up
• materielunderhåll = equipment maintenance
• anläggning = facility
• simulator = simulator
• flygspaning = air reconnaissance
• kustartilleri = coastal artillery
• nordöstersjökust = northern baltic sea coast

Thats a pretty direct translation, I'm not going to bother translating it into an english sentence...

Re:great name

[Der PC]

Vaðlaheiðarvegavinnnuverkamannaskúrshliðarhurðarhengilásalyklakippuhringsvörumerkjaskinnpjatla.

Perfectly valid.

Could last a while

[mick232]

The last eruption was in 1821 and lasted 2 years... you better get yourself some train tickets if you want to travel in Europe!

Re:Could last a while

[NotQuiteReal]

heh, what's less "green", an erupting volcano for a few years or all the airplane pollution in the world for the same time?

Re:Could last a while

[dropadrop]

Yup, somehow the two days sounds very optimistic... And I have tickets to go on a romantic vacation without the kids in 5 days time. Now I don't know if we can leave - or get back. I guess that's life.

Re:Could last a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Ash in the atmosphere causes global cooling. Cue end-of-world ice age in 2012.

Re:Could last a while

[FlyingBishop]

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/questions/question/2008/

The volcano is roughly 100 times as green if we're talking about CO2 emissions, and 10 times as green if we're talking about SO2. Of course, that's assuming that given

Pv = the pollution output from this volcano over two years
Pvt = total pollution output by volcanoes.
Pe = European airplane pollution
Pht = total human-sourced pollution

Pe / Pht == Pv / Pvt

And there are some gaping flaws in that logic, but the point is volcanoes are fairly inconsequential as drivers of pollution.

Re:Could last a while

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot part of your equation. It looks like your number should be about x20.

You count ALL European human pollution then contrast it to 1 volcano. The original assertion is wrong but you are also being misleading. Not your fault the gp asked a leading question.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_number_of_active_volcanoes

Re:Could last a while

[Anonymous Coward]

I misread that as "romantic vacation with the kids" and I was wondering what type of person would be romantic with baby goats

Re:Could last a while

[Hurricane78]

Yup. I love those funky water-trains that bring you over the Atlantic. ^^

Re:Could last a while

[sznupi]

Yup, I love them too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_liner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_ferry

Re:Could last a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Misread that as "romantic vacation with the kids".

Wondered what kind of person would get romantic with baby goats.

Re:Could last a while

[zippthorne]

Boat. With all the dust in the air, in the right places, that vacation might be really romantic due to the intense sunsets.

Re:Could last a while

[Sabriel]

heh, what's easier to "green", all our airplanes or all our volcanoes?

Re:Could last a while

[watergeus]

It started in December and ended in January.
It lasted 13 months.

Re:Could last a while

[tverbeek]

From TFA:

the first time in living memory that an ash cloud had brought one of the world's most congested airspaces to a standstill.

And the time before that was....? The timeframe "in living memory" happens to include the dawn of aviation as we know it. (Hint: Maybe you aren't old enough to remember it, but as long as there are still people alive who do, it's "in living memory".) So I think it's safe to say this is the first time ever that it's brought European aviation to a standstill.

Re:Could last a while

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're claiming, that an eruption that covers Britain, Scandinavia and parts of mainland Europe with a cloud of ash, is an "inconsequential" driver of pollution?

Re:Could last a while

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully trains actually are a viable alternative in many parts of Europe.

Re:Could last a while

[FlyingBishop]

I was comparing the volcano to European airplane pollution, not all European pollution.

bah!

[rainmouse]

People are missing a day or two at most from their yuppie business flights or holidays in the sun and that is all that seems to be reported in the news. Boo hoo. It's not really comparable to the Icelandic farmers who are watching their crops and livestock wither and die as their entire lively hoods crumble before their very eyes. Which gets the headlines?

Re:bah!

[Locke2005]

their entire lively hoods crumble before their very eyes their 'hoods are no where near as lively as some of the 'hoods we have here in the states!

Re:bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

The one owning the newspaper, unfortunately.

Re:bah!

[CRCulver]

It's not really comparable to the Icelandic farmers who are watching their crops...

Iceland has no significant agriculture.

...and livestock

That's a bit more like it, but Iceland is a welfare state and they'll get by just fine. Meanwhile, the economy of the country as a whole is dependent on fishing, and that will be generally unaffected by this eruption.

Re:bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Destruction of property is pretty bad in a welfare state, too. Remember, the economy can't make something out of nothing. Maybe the pain won't affect the individual farmers so direly in a welfare state, but it definitely will make not only the farmers, but the many many others connected to them worse off.

A welfare state has to be able to pay for the welfare somehow. See Greece.

Re:bah!

[jazman_777]

The word you're looking for is "vibrant".

Re:bah!

[nomadic]

What crops? And livestock don't generally die because there's ash in the air.

Re:bah!

[Dogtanian]

Meanwhile, the economy of the country as a whole is dependent on fishing, and that will be generally unaffected by this eruption.

Personally, I can't stand smoked fish. :-6

Re:bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

The crops we feed to our livestock. And livestock becomes "diestock" when the ground is covered with fluoride contaminated ash.

Re:bah!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so he went to the US to buy the iPad using the summit as an excuse.

Eyjafjallajokull

[Wrexs0ul]

I feel sorry for those stranded and fleeing their homes, but also for those having to pronounce what I thought was either a seizure or keyboard failure: Eyjafjallajokull

-Matt

Re:Eyjafjallajokull

[damn_registrars]

Eyjafjallajokull

Gesundheit!

Re:Eyjafjallajokull

[StrategicIrony]

It's a compound word which in the local language basically means "Eyja Mountain Glacier". Eyjamountainglacier.

There pronounce that. :-)

Re:Eyjafjallajokull

[Henriok]

It's a compound word: Eyja - Fjalla - Jökull
It's translated: Island - Mountain - Glacier
It's pronounced something like: Eh-ee-ah fee-at-law jeh-coot'l

News for Nerds?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stuff that matters?

Re:News for Nerds?

[oji-sama]

Having no air traffic in (several parts of) Europe is something that matters to quite many people (and perhaps some Americans as well[*]). I wonder if my parents-in-law will get back here on Saturday or if they are stranded in France. ^.^

[*] imagine something funny or apologetical here

Re:News for Nerds?

[Coren22]

Yeah, EvE Online might go down due to this! This matters!

Re:News for Nerds?

[Mindcontrolled]

What? Do they fly out their data packages by airplane? That would certainly explain the fleet battle lag...

Re:The fkn Brits deserve this.

[lordholm]

I live in the Netherlands, am Scandinavian and side with Iceland on this issue. Please avoid collateral damage on us expats.

Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[PolygamousRanchKid]

England and Iceland have been in a huff ever since a lot of English tax dodgers lost their fortunes in Icelandic banks that went tits up. The British have been threatening Iceland with everything, even including their major satire weapon weapon of mass destruction, "Viz" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viz )

The Icelandians have responded with volcanic gas.

Let's hope that this situation doesn't escalate.

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the banks, we have still not forgiven them for the fish
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_Wars

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

First, there will be a counterattack of dentist kidnappings, which the Icelanders will respond to by forcing England to repeat Islandic names three times quickly, during news reports. Ultimately, a blockade of all things Python will cause Iclanders to lose their sense of humour, and in a fit of SAD, sign over the rights to a bonnie hardwood forest in order to "bring back the worthwhile entertainment."

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[IrquiM]

Yeah, I thought the same, so I got back at them by not going to iceland.co.uk during my lunch break!

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Iceland,

We said "send CASH".

Yours sincerely,
United Kingdom

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Quote:

Dear Iceland,

We said "send CASH".

Yours sincerely,
United Kingdom /Quote

Dear United Kingdom,

You should have stopped to consider that there is no letter "C" in the Icelandic alphabet before issuing your demand.

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

The English asked the Icelanders to send cash, not ash!

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[augustw]

1) They weren't tax dodgers, just ordinary savers choosing to save with an Icelandic-owned bank. The British government are pissed that they compensated the savers (expecting Iceland to repay them later), and now the Icelandic government won't cough up what they owe the British government.

2) England is not the same thing as Britain, Britain is not the same thing as England. Exactly like California is not the same thing as the USA, and the USA is not the same thing as California. Not to hard to grasp, is it?

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[John Hasler]

> Exactly like California is not the same thing as the USA, and the USA is not
> the same thing as California. Not to hard to grasp, is it?

You wouldn't think so, but some Europeans seem to have trouble with it (though it is more often New York they confound with the USA).

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

England is not the same thing as Britain, Britain is not the same thing as England.

You can save this diagram for educating people in the future.

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[ahodgson]

1) They weren't tax dodgers, just ordinary savers choosing to save with an Icelandic-owned bank. The British government are pissed that they compensated the savers (expecting Iceland to repay them later), and now the Icelandic government won't cough up what they owe the British government.

They don't owe them squat. The deposits weren't insured by the Icelandic government. Kudos to the Icelanders for taking a stand (not their wussy government either, this was direct democracy).

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[fretlessjazz]

If I had a Gold Star, I'd give it to you. A mod 5 just isn't cutting it.

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

England and Iceland have been in a huff ever since a lot of English tax dodgers lost their fortunes in Icelandic banks that went tits up

Uhhh, TAX FREE ISA accounts with a foreign bank is not "Tax dodging" you muppet

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[daredd]

Some other 'ejecta' from them that will never be forgiven :
Sporticus and his seriously 'dastardly' mustache - smarmy git.
Björk Gundmundsdottir (ex Sugarcubes) (Bjork who sings trendy crap) - 'Human Behaviour' my arse.

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[mike2R]

If we cannot pay any amount we owe you on your savings accounts, you will be able to claim compensation. The maximum compensation is limited to 100% of the first £35,000 of your total deposits held with us (the same as every FSA regulated bank and building society in the UK). In the unlikely event of a claim, any compensation is payable within three months.

The compensation itself is provided by two schemes (sometimes referred to as a passport scheme) - the end result being that the total amount protected is the same as if your savings were only protected by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The protection works as follows:

* The first level of protection is provided under the Icelandic Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee Fund (www.tryggingarsjodur.is). The maximum protection under this scheme is 100% of the first 20,887 (or the sterling equivalent) of your total deposits held with us.
* The second level of protection is provided by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (www.fscs.org.uk). This scheme tops-up your protection so that the protection under both schemes, is equal to 100% of the first £35,000 of your total deposits held with us.
* Under EU law compensation for any losses incurred due to the failure of a bank should be paid within three months - regardless of whether it is through a passport scheme or the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Further details are available on request.

Reads like a guarantee to me.

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Anonymous Coward]

> You wouldn't think so, but some Europeans seem to have trouble with it (though it is more often New York they confound with the USA).

Well, it goes both ways. It's not uncommon to hear American tourists in Oslo refer to Norway as the capitol of Sweeden, or something similar, or see Norwegian / Sweedish mixups in American tv-series and news. :)

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[Simon Rowe]

You should have stopped to consider that there is no letter "C" in the Icelandic alphabet before issuing your demand.

But there is the letter ash (Æ)...

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[jimicus]

Reads like a guarantee to me.

It was a guarantee, however it was a guarantee that nobody ever expected to have to pay out on because the institutions involved were so large that paying out on it would bankrupt the country.

Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis

[fulldecent]

And in normal slashdot style, you get rated -15

The end is near?

[TexasTroy]

Massive earthquakes, flooding, and now volcanoes. Maybe the world really is going to end in 2012.

Re:The end is near?

[Anonymous Coward]

Massive earthquakes, flooding, and now volcanoes. Maybe the world really is going to end in 2012.

Only in Texas

Re:The end is near?

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Quite possibly some major changes. Of not is the fact that the increased climate temperature means more mositure uptake in the atmosphere which means more rain and maybe more tornados and warmer seas mean more violent hurricanes. What I haven't heard is a calculation of the effect of a couple of degrees of warmth and the coeficient of thermal expansion of the earths surface rocks. Haven't we seen an uptick in earthquakes, it might also be a contributing factor in more volcanic activity and the rocks re-adjust to their new temperatures and bring more presures to bare on the molten rock below.

    renew your library card. At least you will have a place to entertain yourself when transportation is grounded an the electric grid fails.

Ash coverage

[Ced_Ex]

How much ash will this volcano produce, and how long will its effect affect commercial air travel in the EU?

It'll be interesting to see how society copes when all you can do is sit back and wait for mother nature.

Re:Ash coverage

[petermgreen]

It'll be interesting to see how society copes when all you can do is sit back and wait for mother nature.
We have these things called trains busses and coaches. They aren't as fast as planes but still i'd bet you can reach an airport outside the ash zone in less than a day.

Re:Ash coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

The websites from the cross channel ferries like www.poferries.com are unreachable under the load of travellers searching for more robust forms of travel.

Ships seem like a saver option for travel during volcanic eruptions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_General_Loudon_(ship)

Re:Ash coverage

[petermgreen]

P&O seem to have put up a special website but apparently they are fully booked for foot passengers today anyway.

Eurostar'a website on the other hand seems to be operating fine and they still seem to be selling tickets from london to paris and brussels for later this afternoon (they aren't cheap though :( ).

Lessons Learn Alaska Style

[northland5]

Any pissed off European travelers stuck in the airport reading /. may want to read KLM vs. Mt. Reboubt before hitting the friendly skies.

Re:Al Gore was right

[GrumblyStuff]

Yeah! I bet those stupid climatologists didn't even look for volcanoes under all of those shrinking glaciers!

Re:The fkn Brits deserve this.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The Brits were assholes to do that; but you guys really need to grow a spine and lynch the (fairly small and well known) group of banking oligarchs who crashed your economy.

Iceland isn't a huge place; but you should have enough lampposts for the job.

Aha!

[pushing-robot]

It's climate change! You can't deny it!
 
...Well, okay, you can deny that it's anthropogenic in the slightest, and you can deny that it's indicative of any long-term trend, but climate change totally happened in Eyjafjallajokull during the last four weeks. It's scientifically factified!

(ed.—this is a joke about the absurdly generic term "climate change". I'm not part of the AGW denial lobby^W crowd.)

Re:Aha!

[plover]

Re: your sig

If you learn of an Apple-Google-Nintendo merger, do not be troubled. For you are in Eyjafjallajokull, and are already dying of volcanic ash!

Holy crap

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were named "Eyjafjallajokull," I'd erupt, too!

Damn those sons of Vikings

[Harold Halloway]

First they fucked up our fishing, then they fucked up our economy, now they're fucking up our air. I say we INVADE these unpronounceable herring-botherers.

Re:Damn those sons of Vikings

[Anonymous Coward]

YES! Let's send our plans over now to bomb them to oblivion, oh wait...

Re:Damn those sons of Vikings

[Anonymous Coward]

First they fucked up our fishing, then they fucked up our economy, now they're fucking up our air. I say we INVADE these unpronounceable herring-botherers.

...fucked up your fishing? You mean the fishing you were doing within spitting distance of our coast?

We have more volcanos you know, bigger ones even.

Re:Damn those sons of Vikings

[Anonymous Coward]

don't forget about the pillaging and raping of your women.

Re:Damn those sons of Vikings

[drewhk]

"We have more volcanos you know, bigger ones even."

Ow, wait... I DO want a summer!
- Sincerely from Central Europe

Re:Damn those sons of Vikings

[BotnetZombie]

You still don't get it, do you?
First we sent you a freezing winter, and now we've demonstrated a taste of our other WMDs. Are you sure you're not ready to surrender yet?

Re:Damn those sons of Vikings

[Mindcontrolled]

Are you actually threatening the *viking's descendants*? Man, you better pray they don't dust off their battle-axes and get those longboats ready...

UK Folks - embrace and enjoy the experience!

[wowbagger]

To the folks over there, my advice is "Embrace and enjoy the experience".

I had a similar experience in the unhappy days immediately after 9-11: I had scheduled vacation time (fortunately, I was driving, not flying). It was an unusual experience seeing NO contrails in the sky (and being in Kansas I have a LOT of sky to look at!). While the cause of the event was horribly tragic, the result was interesting.

Moreover, there were several pieces of research on cloud formation and the effects of contrails on it that were conducted during those days.

So, to you in the UK fuming about your planes being grounded - take this time and marvel at the difference in your world (and be thankful the causative event has been relatively free from loss of life so far).

Re:UK Folks - embrace and enjoy the experience!

[Xest]

Yeah, if only someone could get that big fat ash cloud out the way it'd be a beautiful clear sky.

Optimistic view

[mybecq]

Optimistically, now's the best window of downtime they'll have in years to upgrade the air traffic control systems!

Iceland's Revenge

[Bysshe]

For thousands of years, Icelanders worshiped giant mechanical penguins that lived in volcanoes. These penguins demanded sacrifice. First virgins, then whales, and eventually the penguins gained a taste for Euros. So Icelanders setup IceSave and the dupes from the UK and Netherlands started putting all their money in Iceland's banks.

Icelanders then took that money and tossed it in the volcano. All looks great but then the credit crisis strikes and the English and Dutch savers lose their money. They demand all that money back from Iceland to the tune of 13k per Icelandic citizen. Of course the Icelanders don't have this money and are outraged that they're asked to cover the greed of the English and Dutch so they sacrifice another virgin make the volcano blow up to prevent air travel

This keeps the European collection agencies away and prevent them from stealing all their remaining whales and virgins.

That's what happened.

Eurocontrol = Air traffic management

[Fjan11]

"Safety group Eurocontrol"... Eurocontrol is the European air traffic management center.

Dear Iceland

[Anonymous Coward]

We said "Send *cash*"!

Re:Dear Iceland

[Dogtanian]

We said "Send *cash*"!

Brilliant, but I have no mod points :-)

Re:Dear Iceland

[Stavr0]

Dear Iceland,

Until you can name a volcano something that the rest of the world can actually pronounce, you will still be considered a terrorist nation. No amount of volcanic ash or glaciers melting (playing up to the global warming crowd) will excuse you.

Dear Dunbal,
is Katla easy enough.

Trains are awsome!

[AnonymousClown]

The last eruption was in 1821 and lasted 2 years... you better get yourself some train tickets if you want to travel in Europe!

Actually, volcano or no volcano, traveling Europe by train is the way to go.

Back when times were good for me, I went to Switzerland, left my luggage in the room, bought a rail pass, left really early, picked a train route, and stopped at every little town the train stopped - and had a beer when I could. Saw some beautiful scenery, pissed off a conductor (I couldn't tell the difference between first and second class! He knew to speak English to me too right off the bat- go figure.), and had the best time.

I just wish Amtrack wasn't the joke that it is. We could do the same here in the US.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[zippthorne]

The main problem I can see is that Amtrak has found a more stable revenue source than actual passengers. Consequently, convenient schedules and passenger satisfaction are distant second and third, or worse, on the list of priorities.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[petermgreen]

Actually, volcano or no volcano, traveling Europe by train is the way to go.
Depends on your critera and how far you are going.

For short to moderate journeys train travel often makes sense due to the lower end effects but for longer journeys it is both slower and more expensive to go by train.

If I want to get from stockport (my nearest mainline station) to say paris (one of the easiest big cities in mainland europe to get to from the UK) i've got to first travel to london (about 2 hours), then cross london and get my connection (about another hour, maybe more given that I will have to deal with passport control) then travel to paris (another two and a half hours) so five and a half hours total. A direct flight can do it in three hours but you have more end effects so it's probablly a wash overall. Cost also seems about the same. Go any further than paris or brussels and flying is almost certainly the quicker option and probablly cheaper too.

If you want to see the sights and have plenty of time and money (in my experiance train travel isn't particulally cheap, especially if you want flexible tickets which you DO on a long journey with lots of changes some of them between different countries networkes) it might be nice to go on a long train journey (hell people ride the trans-siberian railway for pleasure).

Re:Trains are awsome!

[tverbeek]

A bigger problem for Amtrak (in most parts of the country) is the fact that it doesn't own the rails it uses. So it's at the mercy of the freight carriers who do own the rails. That's not a problem with national (or formerly national) passenger rail systems that control their own timetables.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[symbolset]

You lucky Europeans and your fast trains. Here in the US it would take some of us two days by train to get to the next country over and quite a while after that 'till the train got to the third one.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[zippthorne]

Perhaps, but freight travels much slower than passenger rail needs to to be viable. People aren't "just another kind of freight" any more. Consequently, the only thing that Amtrak should have any designs on that the freight companies hold are the rights of way.

Frankly, as a quasi-public entity (publicly funded allegedly private company...), they should have no trouble obtaining the necessary rights, with or without the cooperation of the freight companies. It is a sin to have a 140mph train that averages 45mph because you're too cheap to put in the necessary infrastructure.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[TheCowSaysMooNotBoo]

Cost also seems about the same. Go any further than paris or brussels and flying is almost certainly the quicker option and probablly cheaper

much, much cheaper. and especially much much MUCH faster. And easier to organize

Charleroi - Budapest with airplane: 2 hours, one airplane ticket
Brussels - Budapest with train: 15 hours or 20 hours, depending on the route you take. At least two tickets, no way you can reserve them all in one go.
Brussels - Budapest by car: around 13 hours

Re:Trains are awsome!

[cowboy76Spain]

I live in an European island, you insensitive clod!

Re:Trains are awsome!

[drewhk]

You forgot to take into account the time for checkin, arriving earlier to the airport, travelling from the airport to your final destination (Train stations are usually in the city center). Still, train travel is longer, but it is much more flexible, as you can take any luggage you want.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[xaxa]

Just FYI, the train from Stockport goes to London Euston station. It's about a 1km walk along a straight road from there to London St Pancras (where Eurostar leaves from), or one stop on your choice of two Underground lines. Unless you travel first class on Eurostar you do need to arrive half an hour before departure, but the passport controls are a bit of a joke (no one seems to care about people leaving the UK). There is no check when you arrive. (Returning, you are again only checked on departure.)

However, your times are roughly accurate. Probably the Stockport-London train isn't frequent enough to avoid waiting for 45 minutes in London anyway. You can buy a single ticket for the whole journey, which covers you if there's any delay, but it's more expensive than using a cheap ticket to London and taking the risk.

I live in London, although the opposite side from St Pancras. I'd definitely take the train to Brussels or Paris (no contest), and I'd consider the train to Cologne, Amsterdam etc, but probably no further unless it's convenient to take a sleeper train. It can be -- I'd rather leave the evening before and arrive at 7am the next day than have to leave at 3am to get a budget flight from an airport at 5-6am and arrive at 9.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[TheCowSaysMooNotBoo]

True. However, trains are notoriously bad at waiting so people don't miss their transfers (at least here in Belgium). I think that also should be taken into consideration.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[drewhk]

I had problems with flight connections as well, but your mileage may vary.

Also, the day you travel, is already messed up, so even if you arrive in the early afternoon by plane, you cannot really work and most of the day is lost. On most of the trains I took, I could just plug in my laptop and work during the journey. For me, this was a definitive advantage.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[TheCowSaysMooNotBoo]

I don't have extensive flying experience, but I have very extensive train experience (work near to the trainstation in Brussels). In my experience with international trains (Brussels - Amsterdam) you can count your blessings if you got place to sit, let alone work. And don't get me started on local trains ... . Too bad not every train is a Thalys.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[M1FCJ]

Last year we flew from Luton to Budapest for a week's holiday. Took a train from Budapest to Vieanna for less than 30 euros return. The whole thing was enjoyable apart from the flight from Luton to Budapest and back. I'd love to do it on train all the way. Most pleasurable way to travel available to mankind.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[tverbeek]

It isn't the rights, it's the money. Amtrak can't afford to lay down its own rails.

Re:Trains are awsome!

[zippthorne]

Yes, that's the excuse they give.

But then we come back to it: if there isn't enough of a market for passenger transport to pay off say, a 30-year loan to build out the capital improvements necessary to make rail a viable transportation option for real people (who don't fancy paying extra money *and* time for the privilege of riding the rails), then maybe there isn't enough of a market to keep a passenger rail company going.

Amtrak is heavily supported by the government. They're really not that big a risk to lenders as long as the market really is there.

And if the market wouldn't be there, there's no good reason to keep them limping along at the public largess burning diesel and coal* at a fantastic rate to push around a few rail-nuts and placate environmentalists with poor math skills.

*for the parts where the electric train isn't tapping nukes

Let them fail and either another company will find the financing*, or no one will move in except for the few markets where they actually work (N.E. commuter rail). Either one will be better for the environment by improving passenger miles per joule (and dollar!) expended.

*As long as we're fair about helping any serious comers with obtaining land rights.

A tallent for understatment.

[LWATCDR]

"Having all your engines fail isn't minor, but it isn't on the same scale as an actual crash."

The amount of shear luck involved not to mention skill on the part of the pilots is just over the top.

Having a 747 loose all power and not crash is just short of proof of divine intervention.
Honestly that is probably the worst thing that could happen short of a crash and should be avoided at all costs.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[profplump]

You know planes aren't held aloft by their engines, right? I mean, it can be hard to find an appropriate landing surface, and you certainly have less maneuvering capabilities, but a plane at 20,000' has a lot of potential energy, and a very efficient mechanism for converting that energy into stable, controllable flight.

If the wings fell off and you landed safely*, then I'd be impressed. But engines are no more necessary for safe flight than they are for safe driving -- you're better off with them, but it's hardly a death sentence to lose them.

*I am aware this has happened, and I am impressed, even if the guy was flying something more akin to a missile than a plane.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[H0p313ss]

Flying a jet as a glider somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean is... shall we say... a less than ideal flight profile.

Anyone know of a successful mid-ocean un-powered jet landing?

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[fm6]

Oh please. Yes, you can glide a jetliner without engines, but it's not easy. As somebody already pointed out, the rate of descent is pretty nasty. Sometimes, very rarely, they get lucky and make it to a landing strip before they run out of altitude. Most of the time, they're not lucky.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[tlhIngan]

Flying a jet as a glider somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean is... shall we say... a less than ideal flight profile.

Anyone know of a successful mid-ocean un-powered jet landing?

Not quite mid-ocean, but after the Gimli Glider incident, Air Transat Flight 236 holds the record for longest glide. The original flight path was between Toronto, Canada and Lisbon, and ran out of fuel over the atlantic. They managed to land in the Azores.

Both happened with Canadian airlines...

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[egr]

one missed approach and you're a goner

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

"shear luck". That's funny.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's impressive is how Cap'n Sullenberger did it in the Hudson River after a bird strike. Large buildings with nowhere clear to land other than the river, managed not to hit the nearby bridges, and also enough luck that there were no boats in the way when he ditched - yet they were all near enough to commence rescue within few minutes of the accident. And all that in a much smaller time window than engines going out at altitude when hitting an ash cloud.

A bit off topic, but still quite impressive in how it demonstrates the ability to land an airliner with no engines on water while keeping it in one piece.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[rat7307]

There was an airbus (I THINK a A340) that ran out of fuel and glided to the Canary Islands once. Can't find a link though, but I remember watching one of those dreadful aviation tv shows where they do the re-creation.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[sphealey]

> You know planes aren't held aloft by their engines, right? I mean, it can be hard
> to find an appropriate landing surface, and you certainly have less maneuvering
> capabilities, but a plane at 20,000' has a lot of potential energy, and a very
> efficient mechanism for converting that energy into stable, controllable flight.

Besides the concept of depending on luck and chance to safely land thousands of passengers instead of the engineering, training, and procedures that ended the routine yearly death toll of passenger flying around 1960, the other minor point is that volcanic ash destroys gas turbine engines. Not "breaks them so they need a bit of maintenance", but destroys them. So now you have hundreds of airplanes with 1000 or so destroyed engines scattered all over northern Europe. And a global capacity for making new engines of a few dozen a month.

sPh

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[sphealey]

Here's some information from Boeing on the volcanic ash and airliners.

sPh

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

The rate of descent in best glide for an airliner, is surprisingly good. Much MUCH better than most light aircraft.

Sure they don't match a (modern) sailplane/glider which have something silly like 1:40 ratio (1 mile high = 40 miles run before you hit the ground in still air), but they don't do too badly in comparison either (somewhere up to 1:20 maximum). Your typical light aircraft, somewhere up to 1:10 maximum.

The reason for this is very very simple, money. The less work an aircraft's engines have to do to keep it airborne, the more profit earned, so glide performance is pretty much #1 priority for an airliner designer, through it being effectively the same as economy.

The costs and technology to develop an aircraft with superb glide performance is high, but the savings in running cost vastly outweigh that when we are talking about an airliner - in light aircraft the equation doesn't balance the same since they don't do the hours, which is why a boeing glides better than a cessna.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[yariv]

Honestly that is probably the worst thing that could happen short of a crash and should be avoided at all costs.

Well, in some cases at least one can avoid crash in even worse cases, I believe. This is not a case of 747 but of a fighter plane, but still, have you heard of this?

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[dirtyhippie]

You're thinking of the azores, not the canary islands - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Digicaf]

To add some numbers to your argument:

The given glide ratio of a 747 is 15:1. For every one foot you drop, you move forward 15. This is under IDEAL conditions. So, considering that commercial flights occur between 30,000 to 38,000 feet (mid-flight), that means that an unpowered 747 would have 85.2 to 102 miles of forward range before hitting the ground. Now consider the unlikely case that the 747 has an airport or suitable landing area directly in front of them and lined up and some things become obvious.

Even if you're at maximum altitude when you're 747 loses its propulsion, you.... are.... screwed... 85 to 102 miles is very little range. Add to that the fact that the plane will almost certainly need to turn to present an acceptable landing arrangement, significantly harming the glide ratio during the turn, and you end up with something very close to a nightmare scenario.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[jonadab]

> You know planes aren't held aloft by their engines, right?

Yeah? Shut the engines of your 747 off for a few minutes and see how well you stay aloft.

Planes are held aloft by a difference in pressure over the wing versus under it, but this only works while you're moving forward at a pretty good clip. Your momentum will buy you a little time to act, but time is not on your side. If you don't get at least one engine back on pretty soon, you've got a mandatory meeting scheduled with the surface.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[jonadab]

> Yes, you can glide a jetliner without engines

Only if it's moving fast enough to create appreciable lift.

With all of your engines out, wind resistance slows you down faster than you might think. Once your speed drops below takeoff/landing speed, you start losing lift, at which point your trajectory starts to closely resemble that of a thrown object (like, say, a rock). The wings, just by their surface area, create enough wind resistance to limit the terminal velocity of your fall somewhat, but it's still PLENTY fast enough to cause damage to the plane and injury to the occupants -- the kind of injury that can result in someone looking up your dental records.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[TapeCutter]

Yes, basically it clogs them up with molten glass.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[fm6]

Sigh. You're arguing with something I didn't say. They reading past the first sentence. Or even reading the first sentence carefully.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? How many of those were jets at 20,000 feet?

Sigh, really. That hudson river was just after take-off, not cruising at 20,000 feet.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider? for an example of failure (in this case, fuel-out) at crusing alititude.

That google hit seems to have small planes crashing soon after take off.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Falconhell]

It is no coincidence that the Captains of the aircraft in the Gimli and Azores landings mentioned were expert sailplane pilots.

There is no going around again for a landing glider, so glider pilots have to be very good at energy management.

You just have to get right first time every time.

Being a glider pilot myself, I always prefer to fly with a power pilot who has a gliding background.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Falconhell]

Actually 40:1 glide ratio is so last century.

Most modern 15M sailplane acheive 42 or better.

Flapped 15m as high as 45.

18M 50:1, full ballast 33:1 at 100kt(185kmh)

Open class current max glide is 70:1, the ETA.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Stavr0]

You know planes aren't held aloft by their engines, right? I mean, it can be hard to find an appropriate landing surface, and you certainly have less maneuvering capabilities

Without the engines, the flight control hydraulics are inoperative, that means DEAD STICK--no controls.

There's an emergency generator turbine, it's what saved Transat 236 which glided in from the middle of the Atlantic to the Azores. Swissair 111 wasn't so lucky, their flight controls got fried by an electrical fire. The pilots could do nothing as their plane crashed into Peggy's Cove.

If that turbine gets clogged and fails too, its game over, man!

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[Stavr0]

If that turbine gets clogged and fails too, its game over, man!

Wait, just looked at a picture of a ram air turbine. It looks like a big paper windmill sticking out of the fuselage. Looks like it could keep functioning inside a dust storm... I hope.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[LWATCDR]

Oh yes I am aware of all that. The glide ratio of a 747 in a clean configuration I believe is around 15:1 So at 20,000 feet will glide roughly 60 miles.
Actually a good bit less because you will need to set up your approach slow down, and drop flaps and gear to land.
I am not sure what the best glide speed of a 747 but I would guess some where around 300 mph or more.
So the pilots would have less than 10 minutes to find a safe land spot set up an approach and land.
So unless the failure was right over an airport or a handy rock hard dry lake bead you are in a world of hurt. An Airbus did do it once. They where at high altitude and had a trained sailplane pilot as the captain who just happened to know of former Air force base and managed to get it on to the run way. It was still technically a crash since the nose wheel failed but no one was hurt.
So I stand by my statment that it is just about the worst thing that could happen. Yes a massive structural failure of the lifting and or control surfaces are worse but at this point it is a case of splitting hairs.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[mcgrew]

Having a 747 loose all power and not crash is just short of proof of divine intervention.

I don't think you said what you thought you said. What you actually said was "having a 747 set its power free and not crash is just short of proof of divine intervention."

Loose is a verb (and an adverb), and lose is a verb, too. These two verbs have different meanings, and to substitute one for the other is an invitation to miscommunication.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[andrewa]

Here's me thinking you were going to argue with him about the existence of God, and all you had to comment on was his poor spelling. I can see you're a dedicated grammar/spelling Nazi by your sig.

Re:A tallent for understatment.

[mcgrew]

I can see you're a dedicated grammar/spelling Nazi by your sig.

Not a grammar nazi, but someone who is irked when someone says something besides what they mean. The sig is a bit of humor, the last sig was "'Like a bird, change you cannot'-- Yoda Skynard".

Typos? No problem, I make typos. Colloquial language? No problem. Saying you're going to loose your dog when you mean you're going to lose your dog? problem. You've changed the meaning completely, and that's either stupidity or ignorance.

There's no point in arguing the existance of God, if a blind man says there's no such thing as color, there's no way I can convince him otherwise.

iPad to the rescue!

[jschen]

According to a CNN article, the prime minister of Norway is stranded as a result of the resulting travel chaos and "running the Norwegian government from the U.S. via his new iPad".

Re:iPad to the rescue!

[Blakey Rat]

Running the Norwegian Government? What is that, like 15 minutes a week? Tops.

Re:iPad to the rescue!

[TBoon]

That depends... is there a "Government App" approved by Apple yet?

Re:iPad to the rescue!

[catman]

Heh - he'll have to turn in his iPad at customs when he gets here- its transmitter is too powerful according to EU regulations, which Norway follows.

The Crown Prince is stranded in London on his way home from a visit in Qatar, but at least he can make it home via ship from Newcastle to Bergen.

The worst problem Norway faces is emergency services for the dispersed population in the north of the country. Locally, helicopters provide ambulance services - and what used to be a half-hour helicopter flight might now be several hours by land ambulance - or boat. Health authorities are worried.

For non-emergency situations, it will now take 2 days or more to get from the south end to the north end of the country, with a normal flight it's less than 3 hours.
One positive side: maybe politicians will finally realize that they need to stop talking and actually doing something about the appalling state of our railways and some of our roads!

Re:iPad to the rescue!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Running the Norwegian Government? What is that, like 15 minutes a week? Tops.

Ignorant ethnocentric jokes ftw!

Re:iPad to the rescue!

[zombie_monkey]

Why would it be a problem for helicopters? I thought it's just jet engines? And the ash is at a much higher altitude?

Re:iPad to the rescue!

[M1FCJ]

Almost all helicopters use jet turbines so they can be affected by the ash clogging the engine.

Brown condemns Iceland over terrorist volcanoes

[David Gerard]

ALING, Heathrow, Thursday (NTN) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned Iceland's terrorist attack on British air travel and their refusal to refund tourists' air tickets.

The UK government used anti-terrorism laws to freeze all British-held assets of Umhverfisráðuneyti, the Icelandic Ministry Against the Environment, after minister Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir threatened to further unleash the power of the Katla volcano in the wake of the devastation to school holidays caused by Eyjafjallajökull.

Thousands of confused and angry passengers wandered around Britain's becalmed airports today trying in vain to find out how long the disruption caused by the ash cloud might last. "Can't we just, you know, give the planes a try?" said Brenda Busybody, 54 (IQ), of East Cheam. "I wanted to go and rest on holiday, and Monday I'm back to doing nothing in the office. I pay my licence fee!"

The Prime Minister offered his outrage and sympathy, in lieu of money or anything useful. "This is fundamentally a problem with the Icelandic-registered El-stodth Thyonustah Voweld," said Mr Brown, attempting not to choke on his own tongue. "They have failed the people of Iceland and they have failed the people of Northern Europe! You pay my licence fee! Er, hold on ..."

Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir also offered her sympathies to British travellers. "But, you know, we're still pretty upset about the cod."

Is "volcano monitoring" still considered bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hearing about the dangers of volcanic eruptions reminds me that just over a year ago Louisiana governor (and Republican party spokesperson) Bobby Jindal claimed that volcano monitoring is a horrible waste of taxpayer dollars.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,500267,00.html
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/02/volcano_monitoring_row_erupts.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=bobby-jindal-and-volcano-monitoring-2009-02-25

heh

[hallucinogen]

If Eyja keeps on erupting for long enough maybe transatlantic tunnel becomes real?

Speaking of understatements...

[Anonymous Coward]

I immediately came to think of this accident when I heard about the volcano and remembered this, which is also on wikipedia, the captain's announcement about the situation:

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.

Dear Iceland

[Dunbal]

Dear Iceland,

Until you can name a volcano something that the rest of the world can actually pronounce, you will still be considered a terrorist nation. No amount of volcanic ash or glaciers melting (playing up to the global warming crowd) will excuse you.

God hates Europeans!

[alendit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA-cpzGWVwE

First our economy, now this....

In other news...

[snspdaarf]

Police arrested an Icelandic man of Nigerian extraction after the flight he was on made an emergency landing when the man, who's name is not known at this time, attempted to cause the eruption of a small volcano hidden in his underpants. Experts say it is unlikely a thermal feature of this size could have brought down the plane, as the amount of magma would have have been too small to cause much damage.

Turning now to Hollywood entertainment....

Godfart

[flyingfsck]

Iceland fart in your general direction...

Re:Godfart

[heidaro]

Yep. http://i.imgur.com/0qbsj.jpg

Sandpaper

[Anonymous Coward]

The sandpaper effect is also on the ground. Car windscreens get ground up rather badly if not rinsed with copious amounts of water. The last time this happened we had the bad luck to have it rain and it was necessary to run the wipers. Though the ash was fine enough to not really be visible, it was still present enough to make the water into an abrasive slurry and scratch the heck out of the glass.

Re:The fkn Brits deserve this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fucking Brits deserve this, i hope you chok on our ashes

*Your* ashes? Ashes are what people get turned into after they're cremated. If we choke on your ashes, is it because you were all destroyed by the volcano? A somewhat pyrrhic victory for you. :-)

Oh, BTW, the UK government were definitely asshole-ish and bullying in some respects. Yeah, they probably shouldn't have misused the terrorist legislation for something that blatantly wasn't terrorism related, but the bottom line is that it was *your* bankers operating under *your* rules that fucked up.

for this our motherland will bring you your well deserved terror

Terror? More like inconvenience. If you're implying that you seriously had anything to do with Nature's tantrum (Nature generally isn't too bothered with nationalistic issues), then you could probably cause major problems with a *massive* volcano. Unfortunately, you'd probably have to blow half of Iceland up to do that, and that would *definitely* be a pyrrhic victory.

ETOPS

[RationalRoot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS

Also know as Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim

World is going to end

[confused one]

This is clearly a case of cause and effect. The weighty US Health Care Reform Act combined with Global Warming is being catalyzed by a black hole from the LHC. The volcano is the result. Clearly, the World is going to end!

Cue the guy with a bell and a "The End is Nigh" billboard.

The Cash

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the Icelandic banks fell .. the Brits have been insisting of getting back the CASH
Unfortunately there is no C in the Icelandic alphabet .. so all they are getting is the ASH

Some one has to say it

[celtic_hackr]

Iceland is falling!
Iceland IS falling!
Iceland is FALLING!
All over Europe. Although some will most likely reach Alaska. Thank God Mrs Palin isn't governor anymore. She'd have probably called out the National Guard to attack Iceland.

Shit may be hitting the fan

[unity100]

this 2012 thing, may be real for some reason, even before 2012 :

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php

erupting mountain icons are currently erupting volcanoes. sideways Zs are quakes. its going crazy since last 2 months. the activity is parabolically increasing.

numerous strong (>5) quakes are happening worldwide, but they mainly go unreported in media unless someone dies. one near madrid shortly, one in south germany a short while ago, the baja california thing (it was impossible not to report tho), here, there and now china. iceland volcano eruption is getting stronger, and it doesnt seem to be going to subside anytime soon. its possible that a bigger volcano near that can also go active. and they said usgs stopped reporting quakes outside usa.

something is hitting the fan, and it may really be shit.

Re:Shit may be hitting the fan

[fretlessjazz]

The only thing hitting the fan is the top of your tin foil hat.

Re:Shit may be hitting the fan

[unity100]

yea. tin foil. still.

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.php

there is a certain point, at which this 'tinfoil' bullshit needs to stop.

Re:Shit may be hitting the fan

[fretlessjazz]

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2439&from=rss_home The number of 5+ mag earthquakes is well within the annual norm, as documented since 1900. In terms of the earth's history (I have a degree in Geology), the Iceland volcano is a flea fart. We're in status quo, trust me.

Ummm... wait a minute ...

[celtic_hackr]

I believe that you're wrong about S02 being a green compound. That's the poisonous crap spewed by American factories responsible for the Acid Rain that killed most of the Adirondack Lakes. SO2 is right up there with NO2 as atmospheric pollutants. Certainly SO2 is an atmospheric by-product of volcanoes, but there's already too much in the atmosphere now. Sure it's great for Aunt Emmy's Roses, but bad for Aunt Emmy and her animals. While even NO2 is a natural by-product of lightning, thanks to industrialization, we already have more than enough of that in the atmosphere, too.

Re:Ummm... wait a minute ...

[FlyingBishop]

My point was that the volcanoes are "more green" because they create less of the non-green SO2 compound.

Re:Ummm... wait a minute ...

[celtic_hackr]

Well, certainly true, but misleading.

While it's also true that people are stupid (as in large groups are easily manipulated to do stupid things they wouldn't usually do), an individual may be very smart.

Equally, volcanoes are less polluting, but an individual volcano may be very polluting, like this volcano's sister, which was responsible for the deaths of thousands in Europe and maybe even as far away as Japan (indirectly of course), as a result of it's eruption in 1783 (Laki). Although this type of pollution is probably mostly short term. Some of our pollution is very long term.

Krakatoa, is another example of a very polluting volcano.

Katla Volcano

[mbone]

There is another, larger, volcano nearby called Katla and ...

"Eyjafjallajokull has blown three times in the past thousand years," Dr McGarvie told The Times, "in 920AD, in 1612 and between 1821 and 1823. Each time it set off Katla." The likelihood of Katla blowing could become clear "in a few weeks or a few months", he said.

Given this, and given that the last eruption was on and off for 2 years, we could have travel interruptions for a while to come.

The next Iceland volcano is much bigger

[symbolset]

When this Iceland volcano erupts, nearby Katla always goes up soon after. A major eruption of Katla could give us another "Year without a summer" in the northern hemisphere.

Re:The next Iceland volcano is much bigger

[SnarfQuest]

Damn this man-made global warming! Always causing volcanoes and earthquakes!

Map failure

[russotto]

I noticed a few people up above slightly confused about where Iceland is, based on misleading map projections. But WCBS radio (New York) this morning certainly gets the fail-prize for World Geography; their commentator noted how a volcano erupting "halfway around the world" was canceling flights from New York to London.

Nice going, guys. All the Londoners stuck in the airport who were listening now have an even worse opinion of American geographical knolwegde.

So what happen to Global Warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.

Curse you, Iceland!

[dangitman]

First Bjork, now this. If you keep going like this, you'll soon rival Canada as an evil global threat.

If you've never seen video of a jokulhlaup

[Anonymous Coward]

You should check out the videos of the example in progress at Eyjafjallajökull. It's *awesome*. And if you don't know what a jökulhlaup is, it's a huge meltwater flood that is generated by the heat of the volcanic eruption melting the ice beneath a glacier. Eventually the reservoir of water bursts out from beneath the glacier.

Nice maps of the current and earlier Iceland eruption in March can be found at the Nordic Volcanological Center.

If the problem last longer

[cf18]

Obama and other world leaders may have to miss the funeral of Polish President.

Re:If the problem last longer

[Anonymous Coward]

What a shame.

LAKI has done it before....

[Stavros_Oz]

This is only a little volcano, stuffing up air travel for a number of countries. It will compound itself as outlying airports get 'stuffed' with waiting flights or flights that can go no further. However, this could just be the thin end of the wedge. Take a look at Wikipedia about the LAKI volcano in the 1760's, it erupted for TWO YEARS, and a neighboring volcano an extra FIVE YEARS. This allegedly caused MONUMENTAL climate change globally for many years; culminating in famine in Europe that eventually was the pre-cursor to the French Revolution. Other global famines have been attributed to this event too. Let's just hope this one quietens down quickly. Steve - Australia

How do people read long compound words?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not nearly as complicated as it seems, "fjalla" means mountain and "jokull" glacier so a native would read it more like "the glacier of the mountain Eyja" or "Eyja Mountain Glacier". But like the Scandinavian and German language they build one long word out of it.

I've seen studies showing that humans tend to read (English) by quickly recognizing individual word shapes, not by differentiating letters. So I'm curious about how Icelandic, Scandinavian, or German readers read huge compound words quickly. Do you know of any similar reading studies or explanations?

Re:How do people read long compound words?

[dunkelfalke]

As a German reader, I probably can answer this question. We read them by recognising the individual words. I suppose it is like you would read a normal sentence written without spaces.

Re:How do people read long compound words?

[codeButcher]

I've spent some time translating Facebook into a Germanic language (before my workplace blocked access, yay) that also uses "long" words. I can say that the English way (which incidentally is thought to have entered English from French, since Anglic is also a Germanic language) can be confusing too. A simple example: "Publishing account statement": Now is it a statement about a Publishing account, or does it denote the action of publishing (verb) the account statement? (Of course, context would help a lot.) The rule in the Germanic languages is: if it's one thing, it is one word. So in the first instance we would write "Publishingaccountstatement", and in the second instance "Publishing accountstatement".

Of course, our language rules allow hyphenation if it would make things clearer. Many English words have also moved from joined, to hyphenated, to separate over the centuries.

Then of course, one can always restructure one's sentences to avoid unwieldy long words, and write something like "The volcano under the glacier of the mountain named Eyja". Longwinded, but shorter words :-)

On a side note, one should probably include the "dots" on the "o" when searching Wikipedia for Eyjafjallajökull.

Re:How do people read long compound words?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a German reader, I probably can answer this question. We read them by recognising the individual words. I suppose it is like you would read a normal sentence written without spaces.

Interesting. Does this imply that spaces confer little or no advantage in word recognition? How is the brain recognizing words boundaries quickly if they are not delineated by spaces?

By the way, have you seen the articles showing that it's possible to scramble the order of letters inside English words (leaving first and last letters alone) without making the resulting text unreadable? I wonder if that works in compound word languages.

Re:How do people read long compound words?

[Carewolf]

Spaces are good for resolving ambigiouty. The best compound words consist of one or two syllable words, if it gets any longer the risk of a ambigious word gets higher and it gets harder to read. In essence it is not that different from english. English also uses many compound words, but they have to get accepted first as words, where in Scandinavian languages you are free to do it yourself and are in fact required to do so by grammatics (there can only be one subject or object in a sentence, and a they can at most be one noun each).

Footnote is a compound english word. In danish it is fodnote. You could refer to the font of a footnote as "footnote font" (two nouns) in english but are required in danish to call it "fodnotefont" (one noun), but only context makes it possible to tell the difference between "foot notefont" and "foodnote font".

Yes this does make scrable more fun ;)

Re:How do people read long compound words?

[catman]

Some people have a tendency to split Norwegian words that shouldn't be - sometimes changing the meaning altogether: "Tunfiskbiter i vann" : tuna chunks in water, says the can label. The store may write a poster that says "Tunfisk biter i vann" -tuna fish bites in water. Or "lammelår" - legs of lamb - becomes "lamme lår" - paralyzed legs. Gaah.

MOD PARENT UP

[catman]

+10 insightful

Volcano erupt under a glacier

[Yvanhoe]

Well of course it does some steam. The question is : what will they do with that much obsidian ?

clear skies

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who lives in the UK under some of the Atlantic flight-paths, I'm personally quite happy to be able to actually see the sun for the time being owing to the absence of contrails!

So Jacob lost in the end...

[Anonymous Coward]

Black smoke coming out of an island and menacing our way of living...? It seems LOST was a reality show after all...

Clients were not English taxdodgers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Icelandic banks were operating in the UK like any other bank with head quarters elsewhere.

The Icelandic banks were offering regular banking products to regular people, those products were taxed in the normal way as any other bank account or financial product that you would acquire in the UK.

Re: British Airways pilots, always classy.

[superswede]

Yeah, classy pilots:

British Airways Flight 5390 was a British Airways flight between Birmingham International Airport in England and Málaga, Spain. On 10 June 1990 an improperly installed pane of the windscreen failed, blowing the plane's captain halfway out of the aircraft, with his body firmly pressed against the window frame.

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390

Re:The fkn Brits deserve this.

[BotnetZombie]

Just last monday, the nation got a report from parliament's investigative committee, that details the causes of the collapse here. This includes the part that the bank robbers, paralyzed government and incompetent agencies played. I think what happened last wednesday was that Satan got a look at that report. Here's a picture to prove it.
Don't know why OP got a troll mod, he's right that the oligarchs should have been taken care of a long time ago.

Back to propellers and dirigibles then?

[roman_mir]

So the problems that are presented by the volcano ash to the modern day jet engines should not cause any real trouble for propeller aircraft and even less to balloon or dirigibles.

Of-course we don't have any dirigibles for commercial mass air travel and most propeller aircraft have been out of circulation for decades now.

I imagine that some propeller aircraft could be brought back for this, but what would the tickets cost?

Re:Back to propellers and dirigibles then?

[Alioth]

There are *thousands* of propeller driven aircraft in commercial service by most airlines, the world over.

That they are propeller driven is irrelevant - they are still turbine (turboprop) aircraft, and it's the turbine that suffers the problem. On the other hand, the airline Manx2 is about the only airline operating in Britain at the moment (between the Isle of Man and Blackpool) because they fly below 8000 feet and are well clear of the ash cloud.

Inconvenience.

[Savage-Rabbit]

Terror? More like inconvenience.

This eruption can go on for months, even years. To add insult to injury eruptions in Ejafjallajökull have historically been foreplay for eruptions in Mt. Katla which is a 100 square kilometer caldera that lies under nearby Mýrdalsjökull glacier. That eruption will be orders of magnitude bigger than this one. When Katla blows, and there is a good chance she will do so within the next two or three years or so if history is to be trusted, you can pretty much kiss air-traffic over much of Europe, or North America goodbye. Whose turn it is to not fly for a week or so at a time will depend on the wind direction and trust me, the economic damage of only being able to fly every other week for six months to a year is more than a mere "inconvenience".

Re:Inconvenience.

[Kjella]

Whose turn it is to not fly for a week or so at a time will depend on the wind direction

At high altitudes it's pretty much always strong eastern winds due to Earth's rotation. So it'll be Europe being screwed at least 9 times out of 10.

Why can't the planes just fly lower than 20,000 ft

[2obvious4u]

Why can't the planes just fly lower than 20,000 ft until they are out from under the cloud of ash? Then adjust to normal cruising altitude.

sat imagery

[arisvega]

A nice picture here: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/iceland-volcano-plume.html Check also the official UK advisory with 'affected area' maps http://metoffice.com/aviation/vaac/vaacuk_vag.html

It can happen to you too

[arisvega]

Iceland being more or less halfway between the main continents of the western civilization, means that the northen part of the american continent may be affected directly (directly, as in visible ash on the sky, and stuffed in the engines); see this animation http://www.dmi.dk/dmi/dmi_foelger_asken_fra_grimsvotn (text in danish) from the Danish Meteorologic Institute for an event of little over 5 years ago. Unless you want to start using zepellins all over again, I suggest you, for one, welcome your Icelandic overlords.

Hope its only ash

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect from a volcanon named Ejaculatefull..

Re:Why can't the planes just fly lower than 20,000

[jimicus]

IANAAE (an aviation expert), but it's my understanding that jet engines are designed explicitly to run at around 30-35,000 feet and are very inefficient otherwise.

I'm sure there are other reasons that people could add...