The worst is over for the ash clouds from Iceland's volcano
The worst is now over for European air traffic disruptions from the ongoing eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano. The eruptions are currently only throwing ash up to 16,000 feet (4900 meters), according to the latest advisory from the UK Met Office. Lightning images from UK Met Office show no new lightning strikes from the volcano's plume since Sunday. The lower amounts of ash are due, in part, to the fact that the volcano has melted most of the ice and snow covering the crater. This ice had caused the hot magma erupting through it to fragment into fine ash capable of reaching much higher heights of 6 - 11 km (20,000 - 36,000') in the early stages of the eruption. Ash is also reduced because the volcano has entered a phase where it is producing more magma. Although it is possible that the volcano could enter a more explosive eruption phase that would throw ash high into the air once again, the winds are expected to shift over Iceland late this week. The northwest winds that have been "stuck" in place over Iceland over the past week due to a persistent trough of low pressure over northern Europe, will gradually shift to westerly by Friday and southwesterly by Saturday. This means that new eruptive material will blow over the northern British Islands and northern Scandanavia late this week, avoiding the main portion of Europe. Ash should be confined to northern Scandanavia and Greenland through most of next week, since the southwesterly winds are expected to continue through most of next week.
Figure 1. Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano began to ease out of the ash-producing phase of its eruption and started to emit magma on April 19, 2010, said the Icelandic Met Office. The cloud of ash coming from the volcano was lower than it had been in previous days, rising just 4 to 6 kilometers (2 to 3 miles) into the atmosphere. In this photo-like image, taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the ash extends south in a broad brown plume. Smaller plumes extend from the coast east of the primary plume. These are likely re-suspended ash, fine volcanic ash that had settled on the land, but is now being picked up by the wind. The plume blows south and then curves east over the ocean, blending with the outer bands of a low-pressure system. Image credit: NASA.
I'll have a new post Thursday (Earth Day!)
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Its a shame that AOML hasn't updated in six days.
It would be interesting to see the TCHP maps.
Also, the SST archive goes back much further. :)
What's the deal with that? Did their server crash or something? Out of funding?
I know last year they ran out of funding then somehow managed to come back. Not sure whats happening this time.
Is that temperature scale in Celsius or Fahrenheit?
They'll be back. Were only 13 trillion in debt.
Celsius.
*By the way this is 384 hours.
6C of warming in the last month off the Louisiana Coastline? Very impressive...
Could stick around for a while.
Gotta Love GFS fantasy land. Notice how warm The Yucatan Peninsula and The African Continent is.
Wow.
Havent been following it too much but if it lags south in the atlantic it would only serve to reduce cloudiness over the MDR which cant be good :)
I've seen 140kts above Australia. Mostly in winter. Running at 120kts above Perth, Western Australia at the moment as seen below.
AOI
AOI
AOI
AOI
Humor in Comments
No, unfortunately, they only go back to 2009
2005:
2010:
Too bad AOML isn't updating...
That would be nice to know.
2005 dropped significantly in TCHP after April 15th. Then between April 20-25 there is an exponential increase in SST's and TCHP. This increase is what made the season very interesting.
We'll need quite a burst of warm temps to match that magnitude of TCHP and SST's.
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Amazing increase.
April, 20 2005
April, 25 2005
maybe it's Fahrenheit ;)
It'd be interesting to see how long it takes for the SST's to reach that 4/25/05 point.
Probably early May if things continue to warm at this rate.
lol lol lol
I actually thought the looked remarkably similar...
April 19, 2010
Periods of exceptional climate change in Earth history are associated with a dynamic response from the solid Earth, involving enhanced levels of potentially hazardous geological and geomorphological activity. This response is expressed through the adjustment, modulation or triggering of a wide range of surface and crustal phenomena, including volcanic and seismic activity, submarine and sub-aerial landslides, tsunamis and landslide ’splash’ waves glacial outburst and rock-dam failure floods, debris flows and gas-hydrate destabilisation. Looking ahead, modelling studies and projection of current trends point towards increased risk in relation to a spectrum of geological and geomorphological hazards in a world warmed by anthropogenic climate change, while observations suggest that the ongoing rise in global average temperatures may already be eliciting a hazardous response from the geosphere.
GFS
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