Iceland Volcano's Ash Grounds European Air Travel 283
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."
great name (Score:5, Funny)
My cat can type words like Eyjafjallajokull too.
Re:great name (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Gesundheit!
Words like what?
Re:great name (Score:5, Funny)
I blame Mattel for changing the Scrabble rules to allow proper nouns. Within a couple of weeks of them doing it we have a volcano in Eyjafjallajokull, and the Kyrgyz president fleeing the country. Coincidence, I think not.
Re:great name (Score:5, Funny)
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every hairball....
Could last a while (Score:5, Insightful)
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http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/questions/question/2008/ [thenakedscientists.com]
The volcano is roughly 100 times as green if we're talking about CO2 emissions, and 10 times as green if we're talking about SO2. Of course, that's assuming that given
Pv = the pollution output from this volcano over two years
Pvt = total pollution output by volcanoes.
Pe = European airplane pollution
Pht = total human-sourced pollution
Pe / Pht == Pv / Pvt
And there are some gaping flaws in that logic, but the point is volcanoes are fairly i
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heh, what's easier to "green", all our airplanes or all our volcanoes?
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Boat. With all the dust in the air, in the right places, that vacation might be really romantic due to the intense sunsets.
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Yup. I love those funky water-trains that bring you over the Atlantic. ^^
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Yup, I love them too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2 [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_liner [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_ferry [wikipedia.org]
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The main problem I can see is that Amtrak has found a more stable revenue source than actual passengers. Consequently, convenient schedules and passenger satisfaction are distant second and third, or worse, on the list of priorities.
Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis (Score:5, Funny)
England and Iceland have been in a huff ever since a lot of English tax dodgers lost their fortunes in Icelandic banks that went tits up. The British have been threatening Iceland with everything, even including their major satire weapon weapon of mass destruction, "Viz" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viz [wikipedia.org] )
The Icelandians have responded with volcanic gas.
Let's hope that this situation doesn't escalate.
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Yeah, I thought the same, so I got back at them by not going to iceland.co.uk during my lunch break!
Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis (Score:5, Funny)
Dear Iceland,
We said "send CASH".
Yours sincerely,
United Kingdom
Re:Revenge for the Icelandic / English Bank Crisis (Score:5, Funny)
Quote:
Dear Iceland,
We said "send CASH".
Yours sincerely, /Quote
United Kingdom
Dear United Kingdom,
You should have stopped to consider that there is no letter "C" in the Icelandic alphabet [wikipedia.org] before issuing your demand.
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1) They weren't tax dodgers, just ordinary savers choosing to save with an Icelandic-owned bank. The British government are pissed that they compensated the savers (expecting Iceland to repay them later), and now the Icelandic government won't cough up what they owe the British government.
2) England is not the same thing as Britain, Britain is not the same thing as England. Exactly like California is not the same thing as the USA, and the USA is not the same thing as California. Not to hard to grasp, is i
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> Exactly like California is not the same thing as the USA, and the USA is not
> the same thing as California. Not to hard to grasp, is it?
You wouldn't think so, but some Europeans seem to have trouble with it (though it is more often New York they confound with the USA).
Ash coverage (Score:2)
How much ash will this volcano produce, and how long will its effect affect commercial air travel in the EU?
It'll be interesting to see how society copes when all you can do is sit back and wait for mother nature.
Lessons Learn Alaska Style (Score:5, Interesting)
Damn those sons of Vikings (Score:5, Funny)
First they fucked up our fishing, then they fucked up our economy, now they're fucking up our air. I say we INVADE these unpronounceable herring-botherers.
UK Folks - embrace and enjoy the experience! (Score:2)
To the folks over there, my advice is "Embrace and enjoy the experience".
I had a similar experience in the unhappy days immediately after 9-11: I had scheduled vacation time (fortunately, I was driving, not flying). It was an unusual experience seeing NO contrails in the sky (and being in Kansas I have a LOT of sky to look at!). While the cause of the event was horribly tragic, the result was interesting.
Moreover, there were several pieces of research on cloud formation and the effects of contrails on it th
Optimistic view (Score:2)
Eurocontrol = Air traffic management (Score:3, Informative)
iPad to the rescue! (Score:3, Interesting)
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Running the Norwegian Government? What is that, like 15 minutes a week? Tops.
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The Crown Prince is stranded in London on his way home from a visit in Qatar, but at least he can make it home via ship from Newcastle to Bergen.
The worst problem Norway faces is emergency services for the dispersed population in the north of the country. Locally, helicopters provide ambulance services - and what used to be a half-hour helicopter flight m
Brown condemns Iceland over terrorist volcanoes (Score:5, Funny)
ALING, Heathrow, Thursday (NTN) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned Iceland's terrorist attack on British air travel and their refusal to refund tourists' air tickets.
The UK government used anti-terrorism laws to freeze all British-held assets of Umhverfisráðuneyti, the Icelandic Ministry Against the Environment, after minister Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir threatened to further unleash the power of the Katla volcano in the wake of the devastation to school holidays caused by Eyjafjallajökull.
Thousands of confused and angry passengers wandered around Britain's becalmed airports today trying in vain to find out how long the disruption caused by the ash cloud might last. "Can't we just, you know, give the planes a try?" said Brenda Busybody, 54 (IQ), of East Cheam. "I wanted to go and rest on holiday, and Monday I'm back to doing nothing in the office. I pay my licence fee!"
The Prime Minister offered his outrage and sympathy, in lieu of money or anything useful. "This is fundamentally a problem with the Icelandic-registered El-stodth Thyonustah Voweld," said Mr Brown, attempting not to choke on his own tongue. "They have failed the people of Iceland and they have failed the people of Northern Europe! You pay my licence fee! Er, hold on ..."
Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir also offered her sympathies to British travellers. "But, you know, we're still pretty upset about the cod."
Dear Iceland (Score:2)
Dear Iceland,
Until you can name a volcano something that the rest of the world can actually pronounce, you will still be considered a terrorist nation. No amount of volcanic ash or glaciers melting (playing up to the global warming crowd) will excuse you.
In other news... (Score:2)
Turning now to Hollywood entertainment....
Godfart (Score:2)
World is going to end (Score:2)
This is clearly a case of cause and effect. The weighty US Health Care Reform Act combined with Global Warming is being catalyzed by a black hole from the LHC. The volcano is the result. Clearly, the World is going to end!
Cue the guy with a bell and a "The End is Nigh" billboard.
Katla Volcano (Score:5, Informative)
There is another, larger, volcano nearby called Katla and ...
"Eyjafjallajokull has blown three times in the past thousand years," Dr McGarvie told The Times [timesonline.co.uk], "in 920AD, in 1612 and between 1821 and 1823. Each time it set off Katla." The likelihood of Katla blowing could become clear "in a few weeks or a few months", he said.
Given this, and given that the last eruption was on and off for 2 years, we could have travel interruptions for a while to come.
Map failure (Score:3, Informative)
I noticed a few people up above slightly confused about where Iceland is, based on misleading map projections. But WCBS radio (New York) this morning certainly gets the fail-prize for World Geography; their commentator noted how a volcano erupting "halfway around the world" was canceling flights from New York to London.
Nice going, guys. All the Londoners stuck in the airport who were listening now have an even worse opinion of American geographical knolwegde.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:4, Informative)
Not crashes, "just" 4-engine failures. All the cases I read about said once altitude was lowered the engines eventually started up again.
Having all your engines fail isn't minor, but it isn't on the same scale as an actual crash.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, I just had a beer with my little brother, a BA Pilot grounded here at our home in switzerland.
BA Flight 009 was special because it is the first such incident documented in a modern jet airliner. The pilots were pretty clouless when they suddenly saw funny flares through their front windows (cause by ash particles). "Somke" was reported from the cabin and after some time they piloted a very expensive glider plane (all 4 engines failed). The 747 has a glide angle of something about 1:15 which is very good for a heavy airliner. But with failing speed indicators it is quiet a challange to restart engines midair (windmill effect is used, they need to hold a certain speed before they can inject fuel and ignite it again).
I think these pilots back then did a tremendously good job if one takes into account that they had no fucking clue what was going on (today they have procedures for such situations, my brother showed me his checklist for such cases). And they had a lot of luck. The pilots lost height due to engine failure, decided to do a 180 turn and once the engines restarted (pretty low) they got into the ash cloud again and lost some engines again before they landed with reduced sight (sandpaper effect on the front window) and reduced IFR instrumentation at night.
Cheers,
-S
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Not only that, but if you read the wikipedia article about the flight, they were calculating clearance required to go above, or around high Indonesian mountains, as they descended steadily without power.
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I thought Iceland was up near the N. Pole roughly...how is it effecting the UK?
I'm looking for maps, but it doesn't seem to look that close...?
Ok..just found one map...I thought what is Greenland was Iceland...found Iceland which is east of Greenland..but still, doesn't l
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Check out the satellite imagery [nasa.gov]. The ash plume can easily reach into Europe.
It dissipates as it goes, but does anybody know the "critical density" before it's a problem?
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I'm looking for maps, but it doesn't seem to look that close...?
Note: rectangular maps of the world distort distances. Rectangular maps use some variant of a cylindrical projection* so as you approach the pole east-west distances appear larger than they really are.
Still it is a bloody big ash cloud (note: also because of winds it's neither circular nor centered on the source).
*The variants differ in how they deal with north/south distances. Mercator's projection (the most common afaict) modifies the north/s
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http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=BIKF+to+EIDW [wolframalpha.com]
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=BIKF+to+ENGM [wolframalpha.com]
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=BIKF+to+EKCH [wolframalpha.com]
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Funny)
Ah yes, the icelandic trout. Most modern airliners now have somke detectors for just such problems.
A tallent for understatment. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Having all your engines fail isn't minor, but it isn't on the same scale as an actual crash."
The amount of shear luck involved not to mention skill on the part of the pilots is just over the top.
Having a 747 loose all power and not crash is just short of proof of divine intervention.
Honestly that is probably the worst thing that could happen short of a crash and should be avoided at all costs.
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You know planes aren't held aloft by their engines, right? I mean, it can be hard to find an appropriate landing surface, and you certainly have less maneuvering capabilities, but a plane at 20,000' has a lot of potential energy, and a very efficient mechanism for converting that energy into stable, controllable flight.
If the wings fell off and you landed safely*, then I'd be impressed. But engines are no more necessary for safe flight than they are for safe driving -- you're better off with them, but it's
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Flying a jet as a glider somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean is... shall we say... a less than ideal flight profile.
Anyone know of a successful mid-ocean un-powered jet landing?
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Not quite mid-ocean, but after the Gimli Glider incident, Air Transat Flight 236 [wikipedia.org] holds the record for longest glide. The original flight path was between Toronto, Canada and Lisbon, and ran out of fuel over the atlantic. They managed to land in the Azores.
Both happened with Canadian airlines...
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Re:A tallent for understatment. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. Yes, you can glide a jetliner without engines, but it's not easy. As somebody already pointed out, the rate of descent is pretty nasty. Sometimes, very rarely, they get lucky and make it to a landing strip before they run out of altitude. Most of the time, they're not lucky [google.com].
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> You know planes aren't held aloft by their engines, right? I mean, it can be hard
> to find an appropriate landing surface, and you certainly have less maneuvering
> capabilities, but a plane at 20,000' has a lot of potential energy, and a very
> efficient mechanism for converting that energy into stable, controllable flight.
Besides the concept of depending on luck and chance to safely land thousands of passengers instead of the engineering, training, and procedures that ended the routine yearly
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Oh yes I am aware of all that. The glide ratio of a 747 in a clean configuration I believe is around 15:1 So at 20,000 feet will glide roughly 60 miles.
Actually a good bit less because you will need to set up your approach slow down, and drop flaps and gear to land.
I am not sure what the best glide speed of a 747 but I would guess some where around 300 mph or more.
So the pilots would have less than 10 minutes to find a safe land spot set up an approach and land.
So unless the failure was right over an airpor
ETOPS (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS [wikipedia.org]
Also know as Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim
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Did you even read the link you posted?, that flight never crashed, it just lost power to all 4 engines for about 15 mins, but they eventually started up again.
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Oh yes losing power to all 4 engines at once is nothing unusual.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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Uhm, I think it has more to do with the jetstream, which spreads the ash cloud over Britain.
It's not intercontinental flights that are shut down. It's ALL air traffic over northwest Europe.
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can wreck the windshield and probably the worst thing is that ash and jet engines don't get along.
I'm not sure what's worse for pilots - broken windshield when they are facing huge blow of wind or no engines.. without engines you can at least sit in the cockpit.
The reason it's getting so much attention is that there are many many flight paths that go near Iceland as it provides a shorter path between the two continents.
Actually everything around Baltic sea is currently no-flight zone. You can check out http://www.flightradar24.com/ [flightradar24.com] to see that there's only single plane over northern part of Europe.
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broken windshield when they are facing huge blow of wind
It won't break the windscreen, just sandblast it. Great for bathrooms, not so good for visual approaches.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Informative)
Best case scenario: some rather expensive repairs, including replacing scratched glass and engine parts(or even entire engines).
Worst case scenario: Fiery death.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:4, Informative)
This is actually untrue. Actual sand is not a problem for a modern jet engine - if you ever bothered to watch the A380 ads, one of the tests on the engine was when they fed a constant thick stream of fine sand into the intake of a running engine, and it was going just fine. It will certainly stress the engine, but it will keep running just fine for a very long time before sand starts to really wear out the internal mechanics to cause serious damage and shutdown.
Problem is that hot ash is actually not sand (which would not be able to stay that high in the air), but actual hot ash. As a result, as it goes through the engine, it coats the fuel feeding system and as it's rapidly cooled by compressed cold air pre-ignition, it becomes a glass-like material that blocks the fuel from getting into combustion chamber. This is what is causing the engine flameout. The reason why keeping the engine shut, putting plane into descent and keeping on trying to restart the engine is current modus operandi is because the glass-like substance that ash forms on the inside of the engine becomes very brittle when engine is being cooled by fast air stream going through it. As a result, when temperature drops below certain threshold, the normal vibration caused by drag and turbulence shatters the brittle mass, clearing the nozzles and allowing for fuel feeding to work again.
This is what happened in the 747 that lost all 4 of it's engines to flameout when flying through volcanic ash in the past. The report should be available to the general public, at least I recall reading it somewhere (though in finnish). In general, ash doesn't really scratch as much as stick to surfaces and solidify into dark glassy mass (which does in fact block the windows as well, meaning pilots would most likely have to land in instruments-only conditions in addition to handling engine flameouts).
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:4, Insightful)
Which isn't what the parent said. Did you just want to wheel out your A380 advert anecdote? :) The parent said hot ash turning into molten glass-like substance is a problem for engines. Which you disagreed with, then repeated!
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Here's the anatomy of engine failure due to ash cloud:
1. Ash gets sucked into the engine
2. The ash melts due to the heat of combustion
3. The melted ash/combusted fuel now moves through the various turbine stages
4. As the gas/ash mixture cools, the ash sticks to the turbine blades and turns into glass
5. Engine Failure
The turbine blades in the front have been sandblasted, the turbine blades in the rear are coated in glass, and everything else has been subject to severely unbalanced operation.
Even if you can r
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Informative)
The ash cloud hit my city a few hours ago (Sweden). Other than the airports closed (and I don't understand why), nothing out of ordinary is going on.
Here in England you wouldn't know anything was happening. The dust is passing over at high altitude, so its only the planes that are affected. I'm sure we'd have had a very nice sunset if it hadn't been cloudy...
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except for that whole high alt ash cloud.. that won't block out the stars any, nope
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Was just outside for a fag, and I can still see the big dipper right above me (Chelsea, London) but looking towards Heathrow, the clouds are gathering, and the colour doesn't look good!
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It was a nice sunset here in NL, but nothing wildly spectacular. Then again, sunsets rarely are that. It did look a slight bit more red than usual.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Interesting)
They closed the airports because the ash eats up jet engines, and can't easily be detected on radar. It's mostly silica and doesn't have a dielectric constant different enough from air to show up on most aircraft radar. So even if the cloud is thin enough on the ground to take off safely, you are relying on visual indications of the clouds thickening, and your visibility is poor so it's hard to see.
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It's over London now, entirely unnoticeable here.
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I was expecting more, to be honest...
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:4, Insightful)
The ash cloud hit my city a few hours ago (Sweden). Other than the airports closed (and I don't understand why), nothing out of ordinary is going on. Sky a far away is a little bit more yellowish, nothing more. It also doesn't affect breathing as even normal street dust is more dangerous.
I'm curious as to how you claim that normal street dust is more dangerous. What do you base this on? Volcanic ash is mostly silicates, and based on what happens when you inhale other silicates (Asbestos) I wouldn't be too keen on the substituting volcanic ash for road dust.
As for why they would close the airports. It is a highly abrasive substance, and is very fouling. Running aircraft through a volcanic cloud is like subjecting it to several years of wear all at once, and not the normal wear that an engineer would design for. You would be running through your engines a very fine abrasive compound and at the same time reducing the performance of your engines as you have displaced some of the air. It can clog your machinery very quickly, especially non-jet engines. (Imagine running a piston engine and adding a highly abrasive and clogging dust to the fuel-air mixture.)
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I'm curious as to how you claim that normal street dust is more dangerous. What do you base this on? Volcanic ash is mostly silicates, and based on what happens when you inhale other silicates (Asbestos) I wouldn't be too keen on the substituting volcanic ash for road dust.
It is thought that asbestos is dangerous primarily due to the shape of the crystals. Broken asbestos fibers are essentially electron-microscopically sharp daggers that can slice into a living cell wall and cause the reproducing cell to make faulty copies of its DNA.
Silicates in general may not chemically cause cancer, certain physical structures of the crystals might be responsible. And I'm not saying that volcanic ash contains the "safe" kind or the "bad" kind of crystals. But I don't know that you can
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http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/silicacrystalline/index.html [osha.gov]
OSHA seems that exposure to silica in the crystalline form is bad stuff.
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/ash/health/#chronic [usgs.gov]
Volcanoes, like the one in Iceland currently erupting release large amounts of the stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_Caldera#Volcanic_hazards [wikipedia.org]
Think of the air traffic delay if Yellowstone went off!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huckleberry_Ridge_Tuff [wikipedia.org]
The next Iceland volcano is much bigger (Score:5, Informative)
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All of that typing and all you had to do was go look up silicosis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicosis [wikipedia.org]
It's VERY BAD for you to breathe in Silica dust whether it's Asbestos based or not. The microscopic crystals plug the lungs and cannot be cleared causing respiratory difficulty or even failure.
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One reason it's not affecting breathing much but is affecting air travel is that it's mostly at high altitude.
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Especially a high-pressure turbojet.
Frankly, the auto engine's filter will handle the worst of it...
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An automobile's air filter will plug within minutes of being introduced to volcanic ash. Plug to the point of keeping the engine from running.
This was experienced during the Mt. Saint Helen's eruption in the United States. Stores sold out of pantyhose in very short order because people were using them to filter the ash so it wouldn't plug up the regular air filter.
Re:Nothing unusual (Score:5, Informative)
> An automobile's air filter will plug within minutes of being introduced to
> volcanic ash.
Only when there is a great deal of it: enough to impede visibility. The levels we are talking about here might cut the life of your air filter in half. Jet engines are much more sensitive to this sort of dust than internal combustion engines are. They inhale much, much, much more air, it is impossible to filter it, and they run hot enough to melt the silica.
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Meanwhile, the economy of the country as a whole is dependent on fishing, and that will be generally unaffected by this eruption.
Personally, I can't stand smoked fish. :-6
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I live in the Netherlands, am Scandinavian and side with Iceland on this issue. Please avoid collateral damage on us expats.
Inconvenience. (Score:3, Interesting)
Terror? More like inconvenience.
This eruption can go on for months, even years. To add insult to injury eruptions in Ejafjallajökull have historically been foreplay for eruptions in Mt. Katla which is a 100 square kilometer caldera that lies under nearby Mýrdalsjökull glacier. That eruption will be orders of magnitude bigger than this one. When Katla blows, and there is a good chance she will do so within the next two or three years or so if history is to be trusted, you can pretty much kiss air-traffic over much of Europe,
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Yeah, EvE Online might go down due to this! This matters!
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Gesundheit!
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It's a compound word which in the local language basically means "Eyja Mountain Glacier". Eyjamountainglacier.
There pronounce that. :-)
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It's translated: Island - Mountain - Glacier
It's pronounced something like: Eh-ee-ah fee-at-law jeh-coot'l
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Quite possibly some major changes. Of not is the fact that the increased climate temperature means more mositure uptake in the atmosphere which means more rain and maybe more tornados and warmer seas mean more violent hurricanes. What I haven't heard is a calculation of the effect of a couple of degrees of warmth and the coeficient of thermal expansion of the earths surface rocks. Haven't we seen an uptick in earthquakes, it might also be a contributing factor in more volcanic activity and the rocks re-adj
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Re: your sig
If you learn of an Apple-Google-Nintendo merger, do not be troubled. For you are in Eyjafjallajokull, and are already dying of volcanic ash!
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We said "Send *cash*"!
Brilliant, but I have no mod points :-)