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Iceland's Seismic Activity: A Repeat Show for Atmospheric Ash?
In 2010, ash spewed into the atmosphere by the volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull glacier grounded European air traffic for days (and, partially, for weeks). As reported by The Guardian, a series of similarly situated earthquakes may herald a similar ash-ejecting erruption, and the country has raised its volcano risk to its second-most-severe rating (orange). From the article:
Iceland met office seismologist Martin Hensch said the risk of any disruptive ash cloud similar to the one in 2010 would depend on how high any ash would be thrown, how much there would be and how fine-grained it would be.
Bardarbunga is Iceland's largest volcanic system, located under the ice cap of the Vatnajokull glacier in the southeast of Iceland. It is in a different range to Eyjafjallajokull.
The met office said in a statement it measured the strongest earthquake in the region since 1996 early on Monday and it now had strong indications of ongoing magma movement.
"As evidence of magma movement shallower than 10km implies increased potential of a volcanic eruption, the Bardarbunga aviation colour code has been changed to orange," it said.
"Presently there are no signs of eruption, but it cannot be excluded that the current activity will result in an explosive subglacial eruption, leading to an outburst flood and ash emission." ...
Hensch said the biggest risk in Iceland itself was from flood waves from any eruption under the glacier. He said the area of Iceland mainly at risk of flooding was mostly uninhabited but that roads in the area had been closed.
No, its both. Iceland is worried about flooding because that's going to cause major damage to infrastructure, but the ash cloud in 2010 stopped air travel in the UK.
The only way to save the planet from the volcano is to pronounce its name backwards. Correctly.
the major threat to Iceland is the flooding. Sure its airspace will be affected but if you're house is being washed away that's a significantly more pressing and dangerous issue.
Europe on the other hand is at no risk from the flooding. So the threat to air travel in Europe, based on the 2010 experience, is significant.
Add to that the factor that European air travel is probably orders of magnitude greater than Iceland's...
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I'm quite certain they named it after the sound it made when it first erupted.
South of Vatnajokull is an area of gravel desert with little to no inhabitants. As there are frequent floods and ever changing "river" estuaries, all of the many small bridges in the region are specifically designed to be washed away easily. It's simply cheaper to build them new ones after every serious flood. The Icelanders know what they are doing!
...the headline and article summary at the top says that air travel is threatened
Read again. The headline and the beginning just state that ash can be expelled again, and we remember this from last time when it caused air travel to stop. It does not say air travel is threatened.
In fact, by the end of the last event, I believe it has been established that those ash clouds do not harm the air planes, and you can just fly through them without worry (Airplane companies' CEOs got together to do a fly-through to inspire confidence). Anyone got more detail on that?
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I hear they would have given it the highest danger rating, but that would have involved changing the lightbulb. Since all those involved already knew, they didn't see the point.
thank you /. for my word of the day.
Actually, more to the point, that the ash cloud has dissipated so there's less of a threat. Because this was at the end of it and air traffic had been shut down for over a week and a half, so people were skeptical that things have changed so much that you couldn't fly yesterday, but you can today. (Plus, airline finances are such that if you're not flying them, you're losing money, so the CEOs were really desperate to get moving again and stem the losses).
Volcanic ash is still nasty stuff - it erodes surfaces and glasses up in engines, which causes them to fail. In fact we didn't know about ash clouds until the late 1970s when a 747 was barely able to land in Indonesia after all of its engines failed and won't restart (until the engines cooled to the point the glassed ash broke off AND they were below the ash cloud and could restore limited power). And on landing, they realized they couldn't see out the front windshield because the ash was like sandpaper to it.
The CEO show was basically to say that there wasn't enough ash to down your plane anymore and that it was safe to travel again. (Though I'm sure they probably called for extra inspections because of buildup could cause a failure later on down the line).
There is worldwide monitoring of ash clouds and all that because of that accident because it's still harmful. It doesn't happen TOO often that air travel has be diverted because of volcanic activity, but it's still something pilots avoid.
They are about to get an ash-kicking
Table-ized A.I.
No, that's not what happened. What they determined is better constraints on what ash concentrations are significant. There is still a hazard of engine shutdown and windshield frosting (decreasing visibility) if ash density is high enough, and besides those hazards, there were also questions about maintenance (i.e. not hazardous to the flight, but having a lot more wear-and-tear on the engines, meaning higher costs/maintenance). Starting out, regulators and airlines weren't sure where that threshhold was, and there wasn't much in-air calibration of what density was being picked up in satellite imagery. This all meant they had to err on the side of caution if any ash was present. Now that those threshholds and the image calibration are better established, the safety limit is set at a lower ash concentration than previously, which should make it easier to deal with. The aircraft will still have to avoid higher-density parts of the plume, and if the eruption is bigger than Eyjafjallajökull it might be a moot point.
At least you can pronounce Bardarbunga.
It is a composite word: Bárður - A man's name. Bunga - In this context it means mountain or peak. So in English: "Bárður's Peak"
If you ask an Icelandic person to pronounce it I'll bet you find a few surprises.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So, the majority of the articles I've read about this eruption, have potential dangers all along the scale. From "some ash" to effects similar to the eruption of Tabora (which caused crazy weather fluctuations as far west as north america, where it seeded clouds, was able to drop temps from 85 degrees to below freezing in hours, etc). It's getting hard to find real facts from FUD. If it's as big as Tabora, I would understand governments trying to mute the possibility because it would cause widespread panic. Any geo-geeks out there who can provide some hard facts?
How to pronounce Bardarbunga
So what if it does? What are they realistically going to do about it? I mean the warning is great and all (if accurate), however without a way to stop it, or anyway to mitigate the consequences, what is the point?
I guess presumably you might be able to reroute traffic in advance, however I am guessing the ability to even do that would be limited, as I am pretty sure they would have done that after the first time.
It's named after some dude name Bárðar, with "bunga" translating as "bulge" or "bump." In other words: Bárðar's bulge.
You may resume your frivolity with the proper jokes for the occasion, now. :)
...is causing more and more disasters like this impending environmental catastrophe. Soon, Iceland will be completely ice-free in the summer and slowly sink into the Atlantic. They should rename now to Torfland and get ahead of the inevitable.
It stopped airtravel in more than just the UK. How about all of Europe (exept Portugal).
Here an image of where it was disrupted. Red is completely and orange is partly.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
According to this Icelandic news site, http://www.visir.is/news, over 300 earthquakes were recorded last night at Bárðarbunga (don't ask me how to pronounce it!). Two of them were over 3 on the Richter scale. If you're making a trip to Europe, either cancel it or postpone it.
Correction: close to 300 earthquakes were recorded, not over 300 FWIW.