Iceland's Volcano Continues Erupting As Europe Reconsiders Flight Bans

The Icelandic volcano continues erupting even as government aviation authorities are reconsidering lifting their flight bans that have resulted in massive delays, cancellations, and stranded passengers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Some flights have resumed, but it will take some time before the backlog of passengers displaced by the canceled flights is cleared. Yet, there's a concern that the eruption could pick up again and threaten to shut down flights across much of northern Europe and the United Kingdom.

Here's some incredible footage of the volcano erupting, which includes multiple lightning strikes and lava bombs erupting out of the gaping maw of the volcano:



The British Navy has come to the rescue of some Britons who were stranded in Europe and couldn't return home to the UK by air:

Volcanic Eruptions Continue Causing Largest Air Travel Disruptions Since 9/11

The continuing eruption of an Icelandic volcano has disrupted European and transatlantic flights for a second straight day, and may disrupt flights for as long as the prevailing winds and the eruption send ash flying into the paths of airliners over Europe.

But he said the microscopic ash was potentially dangerous for people if it starts to "settle" on the earth because inhaled particles can reach the lungs and cause respiratory problems.
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There is a heightened danger for those suffering from asthma and respiratory diseases.

Epstein said the cloud mostly remained high in the atmosphere on Friday but the U.N. health agency was monitoring the situation closely. Some ash blanketed the ground in parts of rural southern Iceland.

Meanwhile the European air navigation agency said air traffic disruptions because of the volcanic ash cloud would last at least another day. The cloud's impact, it said, "will continue for at least the next 24 hours."

Eurocontrol said in a statement that it expected only about 11,000 flights in European airspace Friday, compared with about 28,000 normally. On Thursday, there were 20,334 flights, it said.

German authorities halted flights to 11 of the nation's 16 international airports, including Frankfurt, which is Europe's second busiest, and Duesseldorf. Traffic to airports in Berlin, Hamburg and Cologne was also stopped.

In Poland, an official in the presidential administration said the ash cloud may delay Sunday's funeral for Poland's President Lech Kaczynski and his wife, though the couple's family later said the services would go ahead. U.S. President Barack Obama and dozens of other world leaders are due to attend the funeral at Krakow's Wawel cathedral in southern Poland. On Friday Krakow airport was one of only two in Poland still open.

British civil aviation authorities said there would be no flights over England until Saturday morning at the earliest.

Flight delays and cancellations may continue through the weekend (or beyond). It all depends on what the volcano does and whether the wind patterns change to allow some flights to resume to the UK. Experts believe that the ash cloud will dissipate within the next few days because it is relatively diffuse at this point. That's good news for those traveling around Europe by air or who have plans to do so in the near term.

Icelandic Volcanic Eruption Causes Transatlantic and European Flight Disruptions

An eruption of a volcano in Iceland is causing major headaches for airlines and passengers attempting to fly across the Atlantic Ocean or in parts of Europe because the ash poses a safety hazard to aircraft. Plane engines could shut down if sufficient quantities of the fine particulates get ingested by the engines and can otherwise affect performance of these aircraft. The photo at right shows the ash cloud hanging over the Eyjafjallajokull glacier in Iceland (via Daylife). The ash can be razor sharp, and can melt in the heat of engine compressors only to resolidify causing major damage or shutdown of the engine.

Authorities said it was not even clear when it would be safe enough to fly again. In one sobering prediction, a scientist in Iceland said the ejection of volcanic ash — and therefore the disruptions in air travel — could continue for days or even weeks.

Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said non-emergency flights would be banned in all airports until at least 6 p.m. Irish authorities also closed their air space for at least eight hours, as did aviation authorities in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.

The move shut down London's five major airports including Heathrow, a major trans-Atlantic hub that handles upwards of 1,200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day. Shutdowns and cancellations spread to France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland.

In Iceland, hundreds of people have fled rising floodwaters since the volcano under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier erupted Wednesday for the second time in less than a month. As water gushed down the mountainside, rivers rose up to 10 feet (3 meters) by Wednesday night, slicing the island nation's main road in half.

The volcano still spewed ash and steam today, but the floods had subsided. Some ash was falling on uninhabited areas, but most was being blown by westerly winds toward northern Europe, including Britain, about 1,200 milesaway.

The volcano's smoke and ash poses a threat to aircraft because it can affect visibility, and microscopic debris can get sucked into airplane engines and can cause them to shut down.

At the moment all air traffic into Heathrow Airport in London is shut down for the rest of the day, but there's no indication that the situation may change. It all depends on the continuing eruption and the wind direction of the ash cloud.

UPDATE:
NASA satellite data was tracking the volcano's emissions from March, and found that:

[l]ess than 24 hours after the satellite's first observation, the JPL team confirmed the volcano was emitting more than one billion watts of energy -- enough to power 40,000 passenger cars at the same time -- and discharging more than six tons of lava per second.

That sounds like a pretty impressive amount of power, but I'm still looking to see what kind of chemical emissions are being pumped out and in what quantities. Large volcanic eruptions can have climatic effects regionally and globally, so if this eruption continues it could have repercussions beyond that which has already been seen in air travel disruptions. This page provides some historical context and more technical data, but not a measure of emissions.

UPDATE:
As I mentioned previously, this MSNBC report indicates that the Icelandic volcanic eruption has the potential to affect regional and global climate. It hasn't quite reached levels affecting climate globally, but local effects may include acidification of watersheds due to fallout from the eruption.

Global Warming Reversed in Iceland

The oceans may be warming and air temperatures rising, but in recent days Iceland has bucked the global climate trend.

Thick pack ice, the like of which has not been seen for decades, stretched into the western fjords as temperatures plummeted and a bitter wind blew in from -Greenland.

The ice has proved a headache for fishermen, who have been unable to put to sea, but it is what comes with pack ice that has caused most concern: polar bears.

People living around the fjord of Dyrafjördur, which last week was almost filled with the ice, were keeping an eye on the sea, conscious that the bears live on the pack ice that covers much of the Arctic ocean.

When chunks break off, as appears to have happened last week, the bears become stranded, drifting wherever the ice takes them.

There have been numerous accounts of bears making land on the shores of Iceland in the past. But it is the bears who tend to come off worse in encounters with the Icelanders, who take a distinctly unsentimental approach to wildlife.

In 1993, the last time a bear is known to have made it to Icelandic waters, it was caught by a fishing crew and killed. It is believed to have been stranded on a piece of pack ice that broke off the main pack and melted, leaving the animal swimming in the open ocean 70 miles from the main ice sheet. Five years earlier, the last bear to make it to shore was promptly shot when it turned up near the town of Haganesvík in the north of the country.

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There are thought to be about 25,000 polar bears in the wild and environmentalists have warned that they are in danger of becoming extinct as their habitat shrinks. Climate change scientists say that with temperatures rising, the pack ice may have melted completely by 2040, leaving the Arctic ocean navigable and the polar bears with nowhere to go.

Last week's return of the pack ice to Iceland initially suggested that those predictions might have been overly pessimistic.

"I have lived here my whole life, but I have never seen so much pack ice before," said Helgi Árnason, a farmer in -Dyrafjördur.

"Forty years ago, large icebergs drifted on to beaches but it was nothing compared with this.

"[Pack ice] used to be Iceland's ancient enemy, but we stay calm so long as the situation doesn't worsen. This is just to remind us where we live."

According to the coastguard, the build-up of ice was the result of a combination of a high pressure system to the south of the mainland coupled with winds blowing in from Greenland, 300 miles to the west.

"It looked like the main pack ice had reached the coast," said Mr Asgrinsson. "But in fact it was a piece of the main pack that had broken away."

So, pack ice, at unprecedented levels found in Iceland and the Northeast of the United States mired in a deep freeze, predicted to last for a week or more. Sounds like global warming, err, climate change, to me. What is AL Gore's response. I mean he did say that the polar ice caps were disappearing. This would seem to put a damper on that statement (well, what did you expect, he did claim to win the election also.)