Posted on 04/16/2010 2:17:57 PM PDT by blam
No End In Sight For Havoc Of Icelandic Volcano
Planes are indefinitely grounded, and this eruption could trigger a larger volcano nearby
Chris Sorensen
Friday, April 16, 2010 4:48pm
The Icelandic volcano eruption that has thrown the entire European airline industry into crisis this week—when a massive cloud of ash forced the shutdown of airspace over the Continent—has actually been brewing for several months. After nearly 200 years of lying dormant, the volcano beneath the Eyjafjallajökull glacier on Iceland’s southern coast began to rumble to life last December. The first sign of trouble was a series of earthquakes that suggested that magma, the molten rock beneath the Earth’s crust, was on the move. Then, late in the evening on March 20, a fissure opened up on the side of the glacier, spewing fountains of lava into the air.
The eruption, initially a tourist attraction, quieted down after a few weeks. Then, on Wednesday evening, an explosion—the result of built up pressure—sent a massive plume of volcanic ash some six kilometres into the atmosphere. As the cloud of fine particles drifted over Northern Europe, authorities took the unprecedented step on Thursday of cancelling flights in and out of the United Kingdom, while flights in and out of several Scandinavian countries were also scrubbed, leaving thousands of travellers stranded. The concern is that the powdery volcanic ash, which can be difficult to see with the naked eye and doesn’t show up on weather radar systems, can clog up the engines of jet airplanes causing them to malfunction or stop working entirely. By Friday, the situation hadn’t improved much as the ash cloud began to drift south, with some 17,000 more flights expected to be cancelled.
It’s difficult to tell how long the unusual—and hugely expensive—situation will last. It all depends on how long the volcano continues to erupt and whether there is a change of wind patterns over Europe to disperse the cloud. It’s also possible that the worst may not be over. Some scientists are worried that the eruption could trigger another, larger, Icelandic volcano nearby, called Katla. “The maximum flow in glacial bursts caused by Katla can be 50 or 100 times more voluminous than what we have seen,” Helgi Björnsson, a glaciologist, told the magazine Iceland Review. “There are eruption channels between Eyjafjallajökull and Katla and magma could shoot into the Katla volcano. Katla might only need a nudge.”
The International Air Transit Association says the current shutdown of European airspace is costing the global airline industry about $US200 million a day. That includes lost revenues and the cost of rebooking and rerouting passengers. Peter Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for Air Canada, said the airline had cancelled a total of 56 flights over the past two days. He said he had no idea when the airline would be able to resume normal service to Europe. “There’s two things here: the wind and the other is the volcano,” he said. “They both need to change before we can get going again.” Nervous investors have begun selling their shares of several major European airlines for fear that the financial fallout from the volcanic eruption—estimated by some to be upward of US$1 billion when it’s all over—could push an industry already grappling with a global economic downturn to the edge.
Predicting how long it will take for the volcanic activity to subside is notoriously difficult. It could be a few days, weeks or even longer. The last eruption at Eyjafjallajökull, in 1821, carried on in fits and starts for more than a year. The bad news for airlines is that the volcano lies near the path of one of the world’s busiest flying routes, the transatlantic corridor between Europe and North America. Even sporadic, small eruptions over an extended period could wreak havoc with airline schedules.
While it may be difficult for frustrated travellers to grasp the danger—the menacing cloud shows up in the sky mostly in the form of vivid sunsets—there are good reasons for being cautious. In 1982, a British Airways flight en route to Australia flew into a cloud of volcanic ash over Indonesia. The pilots had no idea what had happened as sparks began to fly off the aircraft’s leading edges. Then the Boeing 747’s engines began to cut out one-by-one over the ocean, turning the mammoth machine into a gradually falling object. That’s when Captain Eric Moody used the plane’s public address system to try and calmly inform the 263 passengers of Flight 009 of the terrifying circumstances. “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 it under control. I trust you are not in too much distress.” Fortunately for everyone on board, Moody put the plane into a nosedive in a bid to compensate for the falling pressure in the plane’s cabin. By doing so, he pushed the jumbo jet down into the heavier air of the lower atmosphere and unwittingly helped to purge the engines of the clogging ash. The plane later made an emergency landing. A similar incident occurred in 1989 when a KLM flight en route to Anchorage flew into a cloud of ash that was spewed in the air during an eruption of Alaska’s Mount Redoubt. The 747 also managed to restart its engines and land safely.
Hope it is not another “year without summer”:
On April 10th 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted and killed 10,000 people from the explosion and another 82,000 people from related causes such as starvation and disease. To date, Tambora is the world’s worst volcano disaster in recorded history. The mountain, which stood at 13,000 feet tall, was reduced by 4,000 feet and spewed 93 cubic miles of ash into the atmosphere.
it didn’t drastically affect weather patterns in distant places, such as the Northern Hemisphere, until 1816
Read more at Suite101: The Year Without a Summer 1816: Caused by the 1815 Eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia
http://volcanoes.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_year_without_a_summer_1816#ixzz0lIhAqm8M
"The potential eruption of Iceland's volcano Katla could send the world, including the USA, into an extended deep freeze."
Got milk?
So who can figure out the amount of cArbon credits these vulcanos are eating up
Can’t Algore and his band of crazy enviroloonies DO SOMETHING!!! Can’t they jump in the damn thing as a human sacrifice to Gaia or something! They’re the ones who believe in all that mythical “mother earth” hocus pocus! People have places to go and people to see. Without the airlines flying, that’s impossible!
Distress? Who, me? No, my seat was like that when I sat down...
The volcano will cause a health threat if it erupts continually for a long enough period of time. It wouldn’t surprise me if BO/BS uses that as an excuse to allow muzzies in England to emigrate to the U.S.
No Global Warming?.....Goodbye AlGore!
Quick, put all your monies into Trans-Atlantic cruise ships!!!!
"And also...Thank you for flying Air Gaia".
I read a story today that the eruption of Mt. Eyjafjallajökull might last for weeks, and interrupt European air travel for weeks. Make that months if Mt. Katla erupts too.
The article I read earlier this week also said that Mt. Katla's past eruptions have been so big as to reduce the northern hemisphere's crop growing season for a year or two. Not just Europe's crop season, but that of the whole northern hemisphere. Let's hope Mt. Katla stays dormant.
I wonder how much glacial ice this volcano is going to release into the Atlantic. Which according to the theory of man made global warming, would cause the Atlantic conveyor to shut down, or at least slow down, Thus causing massive cooling in Europe. Add to that all the ash in the air over Europe, and then the rest of the world; ought to cause global temps to drop quite a bit.
Looks like they’ll be skating on the Thames next winter.
Paging Algore, please pick up the white curtesy phone.
No mention of the damage that could be done to the economy of Europe in general from the loss of tourism.
Not too many tourists are going to take a cruise to Europe.
Many won’t want to risk taking a flight to Europe if they may not be able to fly back on time.
Are you telling us everything?
Captain: Not exactly, we're also out of coffee.
AAAAGGGGHH!!!!!!!
Or liners like the QM2.
Stewardess to Bill: Do I detect a slight urine smell? :D
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