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Four of Iceland's Main Volcanoes Are All Preparing For Eruption (icelandmonitor.mbl.is)
Vulcanologists always watch Iceland carefully -- it's the one exposed place on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with 130 different volcanoes -- and something big may be brewing. Applehu Akbar writes: Now that four of Iceland's largest volcanoes are showing signs of impending eruption, the world may be in for another summer of ash. Katla, Hecla, Bárðarbunga and Grímsvötn have all had major activity in the past, including vast floods from melting glaciers, enough ash to ground aircraft over all of Europe, volumes of sulfur that have induced global nuclear winter for a decade at a time, and clouds of poisonous fluoride gas. When the mountains of Iceland speak, the whole world listens.
Eruptions are already overdue for both Hekla and Katla -- Hekla's magma chamber has filled up, and Katla last erupted in 1918. "The Katla eruption would lead to the melting of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, resulting in a glacial flood," reports Tech Times, "likely to hit areas where large crowds are found at any given point of time, especially the black sand beaches of Sólheimasandur and the village of Vik in Southern Iceland."
Eruptions are already overdue for both Hekla and Katla -- Hekla's magma chamber has filled up, and Katla last erupted in 1918. "The Katla eruption would lead to the melting of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, resulting in a glacial flood," reports Tech Times, "likely to hit areas where large crowds are found at any given point of time, especially the black sand beaches of Sólheimasandur and the village of Vik in Southern Iceland."
Mother Earth stands ready to combat global warming with some nice ash clouds. Thus saving civilization as we know it.
Or wiping it out entirely .....
(Just depends on your point of view.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
From WikiPedia
The flood discharge at the peak of an eruption in 1755 has been estimated at 200,000–400,000 m3/s (7.1-14.1 million cu ft/sec), comparable to the combined average discharge of the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yangtze rivers (about 266,000 m3/s (9.4 million cu ft/sec)).
THAT is a lot of warm water.
volumes of sulfur that have induced global nuclear winter for a decade at a time
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Glacier outburst floods are known as "jökulhlaups" in geology, an Icelandic word since it has been the scene of many historic floods of this type.
In 1755 a jökulhlaup from the Katla volcano had a peak flow of up to 400,000 cubic meters/second, about 20 times the flow rate of the Mississippi River, or twice that of the Amazon, making it briefly the largest river in the world.
But that's not the only destructive aspect of Iceland's volcanoes. In 1783 the eruption of the Laki volcano released 14 cubic kilometers of basalt and 1 cubic kilometer of airborne ash. It killed 25% of Iceland's population through poison gas: 500 million tons of hydrogen fluoride and sulfur dioxide were released poisoning the population and the livestock. The fatalities were both from direct poisoning (mostly from the hydrogen fluoride) and later starvation since most of the livestock was killed. The toxic cloud affected much of Europe as well, though not as severely. This eruption also created a three-year long period of unseasonable cold in the northern hemisphere leading to famine killing thousands, and possibly contributing to the French Revolution.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
No, you don't get it. EVERYTHING is due to global warming, even global cooling.
this will happen more and more often. The Republicans will just find new ways to lie to their selves that AGW doesn't exist.
May your bridge be wiped out by a jökulhlaup.
You got it backwards. Katla's the one that would go off without giving the airlines any notice. It's actually a serious safety issue; some people are arguing for a permanent no-fly zone over her, because she tends to go off with no warning whatsoever. Not always, but often. And she tends to have explosive eruptions. It's doubtful that an airplane approaching her would have time to divert before the ash cloud reached it.
I spent the evening flickering into your darkness.
you are missing the point. We need a mixture of energy rather than 100% based on wind/solar that so many fools push solely. That way, when a crisis like this hits, the nation has energy to survive it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.