Icelands unpronouncable Volcano

posted by The Vidiot @ 8:46 AM Permalink

Seriously, how the hell do you pronounce Eyjafjallajökull? I'm thinking something like "eye-jaf-jalla-JO-cool". Helluva language those Icelanders have. Anyway, Here's some history on that volcano and its sister volcanoes, if you're interested. I didn't know but the one that's blowing now is connected to Hekla and Katla, which typically erupt after Eyjafjallajökull.

Experts are not as concerned about Eyjafjallajokull as much as a nearby volcano that has much greater potential. Past activity at Eyjafjallajokull has triggered eruptions at the Katla volcano.

That can't be good.

Here's a good Twitter feed. Here's a good web cam and here's a map of air traffic that will put it all into perspective for you. What they're not telling you is that this sort of disruption could very well go on for a couple of years.

But if the explosive nature of the volcano's eruption "is more a function of the composition of the magma, this could go on continuously or episodically for quite a while," he says.

That's from the CS Monitor. The usual culprits though, our corporate-owned media, is obviously protecting the economy, or at least the perception of it, and they tell us

The eruption of an Icelandic volcano that sent a huge plume of ash into the atmosphere and caused sweeping disruptions of air traffic over Great Britain and Scandinavia today will likely dissipate in the next several days, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder atmospheric scientist.

If you do a google news search, that story has been picked up and repeated everywhere. The key words that kees showing up in the little story blurbs are "will likely dissipate". That's what they want folks to focus on.

Obviously, our media doesn't want us to worry about the huge economic hit this volcano could have. See, it seems illogical to me that it won't last for some time. Volcanoes, as far as I can recollect, if they don't do a massive blow, tend to let off steam over time. This volcano could just cough and sputter for a while and air traffic over Europe will become sporadic and difficult. Not to mention the result of all that particulate matter in the air on the climate and growing seasons, respiratory conditions, etc. I could be wrong. I'm no geologist. But this aspect of volcanoes has not been discussed in our illustrious media so it sort of has me wondering. You know, what they don't want us to know...

But there is a silver lining in all of this; the grounded planes aren't spewing their usual fumes into the air. The carbon footprint of the grounded planes is way more than the carbon being spewed by the volcano. (I saw a graphic that I now can't find that shows just how remarkable it is. I HATE when that happens.) But that's all I can come up with as far as a silver lining goes. For the most part, this volcano is a huge inconvenience and quite possibly, an economic disaster. Hopefully, it won't kill a lot of people either. Personally, I hate to fly when all conditions are perfect. As it stands now, I'm not sure anybody will be able to get me into a plane in Europe with all that crap in the air that could possibly gum up engines in mid-flight. Yikes.

Labels: Economy, iceland, volcanoes