Posted on 04/20/2010 10:26:27 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Get Ready for Decades of Icelandic Fireworks
Get Ready for Decades of Icelandic Fireworks We're not quite back to the pre-plane era, but air travel over and around the north Atlantic might get a lot more disrupted in the coming years.
Volcanologists say the fireworks exploding from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland, which is responsible for the ash cloud that is grounding all commercial flights across northern Europe, may become a familiar sight. Increased rumblings under Iceland over the past decade suggest that the area is entering a more active phase, with more eruptions and the potential for some very large bangs.
"Volcanic activity on Iceland appears to follow a periodicity of around 50 to 80 years. The increase in activity over the past 10 years suggests we might be entering a more active phase with more eruptions," says Thorvaldur Thordarson, an expert on Icelandic volcanoes at the University of Edinburgh, UK. By contrast, the latter half of the 20th century was unusually quiet.
Along with increased volcanism, more seismic activity has been recorded around Iceland, including the magnitude-6.1 quake that rocked Reykjavik in May 2008.
(Excerpt) Read more at io9.com ...
stick a cork in that thang!
They might figure out a filter of sort for airplanes. Necessity is the mother of all inventions
getting that stuff in a piston engine or clogging up its air filter is no picnic either
Hmm... if that’s the case, airplanes should be equipped with booster rockets which will carry it into stratosphere(anyway going over the reach of ash cloud,) and turn on their engine, and go into ‘reentry’ near the destination(by gliding or using another set of rockets for final approach.)
If this is true, air travel disruptions will be the least of Northern and Western Europe's problems. Icelandic volcanoes have caused widespread crop failures and famines in Europe before, which resulted in great loss of life and major population dislocations.
With today's interconnected, global community, a long-term series of eruptions of volcanoes on Iceland would have devastating effects, world wide.
These eruptions could cause whole countries to fail, which would impact the politics and economies of the planet in terrible ways.
i was thinking this might bring back the zeppelin.
Get Ready for Decades of Icelandic Fireworks- I`m gonna go to Reykjavík `n get me a girl
How about we try going “Hi-Tech” instead?
Indtead of going ‘back’ to a prop plane lets try a rocket ride using a sub-orbital flight..... up and over to the desired landing point. No engines of any kind to plugg up, just a parachute full of dirt and that sudden jolt when you finally stop. The Ruskies started their space program this way.
Coffee/Tea anyone?
There are still ways to dodge around the dust cloud, like going to its south. Or at more expense, go over the Orient and Pacific. Routes and perhaps infrastructure will need to adapt.
Sure, air travel routes can be rerouted to avoid the worst of the ash fall, but if these volcanoes start belching with any regularity, we're talking crop failures and famine, not to mention the ruination of all that makes life possible. Whole regions of Western Europe could become wastelands if this continues. It's happened before.
Ironic that these volcanoes started acting up after all the hue and cry about globull warming. We may wish! (Modern botanic science might yet furnish us with cold-tolerant crop plants.)
I just knew that some Freeper would find an upside to this disaster!
Yes...I’ve heard about those Ruskie landings too...they chose to bring space capsules down on land instead of water...ouch...
They might have to redesign airplanes. This time around, they should think “what if there’s a volcano?” And then make an airplane that can fly fine if there’s a volcano.
Something is clearly wrong here. Airplanes have been around 100 years. Volcanos even longer. In that 100 years, we’ve been to the moon, and built supersonic jet aircraft. But we haven’t figured out that we need our airplanes to be able to fly in volcanic ash.
They really need to get those airplanes designed and tested and ready to be built.
And if airlines want to fly, airlines should be allowed to fly. Governments in Europe are keeping airports closed, the airplanes are on the ground, the airlines want to put the planes in the air and the customers want to get on the planes. And they’re going to be bailing out these airlines?
Lower levels of sunlight due to volcanic eruptions aren't the only problem for plants.
Volcanic ash falls from the sky and begins to pile up on every downwind surface. If it continues for any appreciable length of time, it smothers every growing thing, and creates a moonscape that's unlivable for animals and humans.
There are some planetary phenomena that are beyond human technological solutions, and volcanoes are one of them.
More likely increased travel by ship.
“How big” the eruption(s) and “how widely” the ash spreads are going to be the big ifs in this equation. In a scenario such as a Yellowstone volcano, the outlook is far grimmer than this Icelandic volcano that isn’t generating much news about fallout yet.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.