Looks like the new volcanic eruption on Iceland will have air traffic shut down for a while over here in western Europe. Sounds like it is considered a pretty bad idea to fly when there is significant amounts of volcanic ash in the air - it can "strangle" airplane jet engines when the ash melts in the engines and turns into a slow flowing thick slushy mess.

Oh well - at least the long distance passenger trains are running to capacity as people are transferring from canceled planes to trains, buses, boats and cars.

And nobody knows how long the volcanic eruption will continue - could take quite a while.

Stein

I havent read much about it. Can you see the ash from where you are, or are the sunsets any different?

I wondered about that too -- that passenger trains would benefit. I heard today that flights to the UK have been suspended until Saturday & probably even later. It depends on wind patterns and it there will be future eruptions. I also heard that flights to northwestern Europe (from Spain northwards) have also been delayed.

Previous volcanic eruptions from other volcanoes have caused the night sky to dim (I used to be into astronomy a lot) and I believe they caused redder sunsets as well. Back in 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted and the very cool summer that we had in 1992 was blamed on that.

So I'm wondering now if this eruption will make our upcoming summer much cooler, especially seeing that Iceland is much closer to North America compared to the Philippines.

Rob

nachoman Wrote:I havent read much about it. Can you see the ash from where you are, or are the sunsets any different?

Not as far as I have noticed. Or at least - not yet. Time will tell.

RobertInOntario Wrote:I wondered about that too -- that passenger trains would benefit. I heard today that flights to the UK have been suspended until Saturday & probably even later. It depends on wind patterns and it there will be future eruptions. I also heard that flights to northwestern Europe (from Spain northwards) have also been delayed.

More like "canceled" than "delayed". The air space over Norway is closed, and all flights out of all airports are canceled until further notice. According to the media, the same applies to Ireland, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. France has the northernmost parts of it's airspace (including the Paris region) closed.

For Europe as a whole, the media claims about 5 or 6000 flight was canceled or expected to be canceled on Thursday or Friday.

As an illustration: here is a picture the flight information board at Schiphol in the Netherlands Thursday afternoon at 3:15 pm:



Ironically, the main airport on Iceland is not so much affected (except for traffic to the east, towards northern Europe) - Keflavik is to the west of the volcano, and the wind direction towards the east.

The current jokes about the situation is : "Must be a case of insurance fraud - first all the money disappears (*), and then the whole thing is set on fire ..." and "dear Iceland - we asked you to send CASH, not ASH" :-)

(*) Iceland has been having a banking scandal, with lots of money disappearing in a market upheaval.

Quote:Previous volcanic eruptions from other volcanoes have caused the night sky to dim (I used to be into astronomy a lot) and I believe they caused redder sunsets as well. Back in 1991, Mount Pinatubo erupted and the very cool summer that we had in 1992 was blamed on that.

So I'm wondering now if this eruption will make our upcoming summer much cooler, especially seeing that Iceland is much closer to North America compared to the Philippine

Not likely. For one thing the earth rotates in such a way and the jet winds blow in such a way that you get stuff from your west (e.g. from the Philippines), just like we get stuff from our west (e.g from Iceland). For another - this is a small eruption.

It's just that nobody really was expecting it or were prepared for it over here. Last time this volcano went active (in 1821), it went on erupting on and off for about two years.

Guess we'll see how long it lasts this time. And whether this eruption kicks off Iceland's Mount Hekla, which is a much larger volcano. Possible, but not likely.

Hopefully the rather massive interruption of air traffic won't last too long. It depends on when the volcano stops spewing out ash - and then it probably will take on the order of 24-48 hours after that for the ash to settle. No sign of the volcano slowing down yet :-/


Stein

I heard on the news last night that, yes, this is a small eruption. It's nowhere near as large at the Mt. Pinatubo one in 1991, so it won't have any affect on our weather or summer.

We'll still see how this goes. I'm both intrigued and worried about this.

Rob

RobertInOntario Wrote:I heard on the news last night that, yes, this is a small eruption. It's nowhere near as large at the Mt. Pinatubo one in 1991, so it won't have any affect on our weather or summer.

We'll still see how this goes. I'm both intrigued and worried about this.

Well, it certainly will be a inconvenience if air traffic remains grounded for weeks or even months.

Btw - train related - people working on the airport express train are being laid off - apparently no one wants to go to the airport when there is no flights ...

If this thing lasts for a while, it might be smarter to redeploy the airport express train sets to intercity traffic instead of leaving them idle and leaving people out of work - all intercity trains are already filled to the gills by people trying to get places without airplanes ...

Time will show what happens next.

Stein

steinjr Wrote:Well, it certainly will be a inconvenience if air traffic remains grounded for weeks or even months.

Btw - train related - people working on the airport express train are being laid off - apparently no one wants to go to the airport when there is no flights ...

If this thing lasts for a while, it might be smarter to redeploy the airport express train sets to intercity traffic instead of leaving them idle and leaving people out of work - all intercity trains are already filled to the gills by people trying to get places without airplanes ...

Time will show what happens next.

Stein

I presume that everyone who was in the airport waiting for a flight that was canceled has already been evacuated from the airport? I saw on the AOL news page that many flights are being diverted to Southern European airports, but that is causing back ups in those airports due to them trying to handle two or three times as much traffic as they were design for or are accustomed to. Trains may be a solution for the Europeans, but it makes it difficult for Americans either stranded in Europe or for Europeans wanting to get home from the U.S. They just haven't completed that bridge over the Atlantic from the U.S. to the West Coast of England, yet!

Maybe everyone who is stranded will take flights east (if possible - depending on dispersal pattern of ash). It's a long way round though...!

Here's an interesting story about taking a cab from Oslo to Brussels to catch a train to London:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100416/oddities/iceland_volcano_aviation_entertainment_offbeat">http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100416/o ... nt_offbeat</a><!-- m -->

Andrew

Russ Bellinis Wrote:Trains may be a solution for the Europeans, but it makes it difficult for Americans either stranded in Europe or for Europeans wanting to get home from the U.S. They just haven't completed that bridge over the Atlantic from the U.S. to the West Coast of England, yet!

Doesn't help much within Europe either. We have passenger trains, but we don't have excess capacity equivalent of 14 000 flights or whatever it was that was canceled :-)

Most people will just have to delay planned trips until this stuff clears up. If we are lucky - in a few days. If we are not so lucky - it will take longer. Time will tell.

Stein

How far south are airports closed? The news mentions Paris but not much else.

BR60103 Wrote:How far south are airports closed? The news mentions Paris but not much else.

BBCs list from Friday morning (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8626505.stm) says:
Airspace totally closed:
Belgium
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia (until at least 0000 GMT Saturday)
Finland (all commercial flights grounded)
Hungary
Latvia
Netherlands
Slovakia
Switzerland

Partial closures:
Austria
France (northern airspace, with Paris airports closed until 1200 GMT Saturday)
Germany (most airports closed)
Italy (northern airspace closed until 1200 GMT Saturday)
Lithuania (air traffic control leaving decision to fly to individual companies)
Norway (limited flights in north)
Poland
Republic of Ireland (most airspace opened Friday)
Sweden (northern airspace opened Friday)
UK (some restrictions lifted)

They also had an interesting illustration from http://www.flightradar24.com showing the difference in air traffic between Thursday morning and Friday afternoon in NW Europe:




Flights in the air right now over Europe only shows flights in SE Europe (see below) - but it is early morning (like 5 am for most of Europe) over here, so this is a time of day where there would be relatively few flights anyways.



EDIT: actually, doesn't seem to change much later in the day. It looks like this at 10am CET on Saturday morning:


Stein

Well - probably pretty much off topic for this forum, but it seems like the wind has changed and Norway now mostly is out of the path for the ash clouds. All our airports north of Bergen has been reopened, and transcontinental flights and a bunch of shuttle flights from Iceland are now routed in onto the Vaernes airport near Trondheim in mid-central Norway to get people formerly stuck on Iceland into Europe.

Tomorrow flights are supposed to be operating from Vaernes down to Oslo, too, unless the wind turns. South of Oslo prospects still seem somewhat gray (...) for tomorrow.

Test flights have been made by various airlines and governments. The Finnish air force reported some buildup of ash in the turbines of F-18s and Hawk jet planes sent up to check conditions, Lufthansa and KLM reports successful flights without any observable damage in central Europe.

Meanwhile - no change in volcanic activity on Iceland - the stuff keeps getting thrown up into the air at the same rate as it has for the last couple of days.

Stein

Not surprising - would any of you fly through this?

Surreal. Got any details on that one Mountain Man?
Never mind. Just came across the details elsewhere...
Apr. 18, 2010 Marco Fulle captured this incredible image from a helicopter a quarter mile from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull Volcano.

That is very impressive.