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

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: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

[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.

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.