Thursday, April 22, 2010

Eyjafjallajökull

The air routes are clearing up and now that I've finally mastered the spelling, if not the pronunciation, of Eyjafjallajökull I can actually blog about it. Not that I have much to say on the topic, so here are some pretty pictures (click them for larger versions):

From NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, April 19

From The Daily Mail. Follow the link for other great pictures.

To learn more about that volcanic lightning, check out this post at Starts With a Bang.


4 comments:

Rob said...

I have been very confused about the whole grounding of planes based on this eruption. Why can't planes fly around the ash cloud? I have seen pictures that clearly show that the ash is restricted to layers in the atmosphere, so perhaps planes could fly above or below?
If the airline industry was independent enough they could simply go around and charge more for the flights to compensate for additional fuel.

Kamel said...

It doesn't exactly answer the question, but this post discusses the closures. The short version is a) models of ash dispersal aren't the best, so keeping on top of it as it moves and changes isn't trivial, b) it's not just the visible ash to worry about (comment 90 in that thread has an interesting story about it) and c) a case of "better safe than sorry" by the various aviation associations involved.

Kamel said...

This is also worth reading for the answers.

Rob said...

Nice find. Those links were exactly what I looked for a few days ago. Don't know how I missed them. I guess I underestimated how dynamic the ash cloud might be.
Also good job on the umlaut.