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Four of Iceland’s main volcanoes are preparing for eruption
- juandazapata 10y agoIf any of needs a place to stay, my home in Colombia is honored to have some guests.
- solidr53 10y agoNow its just waiting for the foreigners to try pronounce them.
- bwilli123 10y agohttp://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/volcanic-eruptions/ http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/volcanic-erupti...
- Isamu 10y ago>Katla is Iceland's most dangerous volcano and is located underneath the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap. Had to look this up: >Katla is a large volcano in southern Iceland. It is very active; twenty eruptions have been documented between 930 and 1918, at intervals of 13–95 years. It has not erupted violently for 99 years, although there may have been small eruptions that did not break the ice cover, including ones in 1955, 1999, and 2011. Small eruptions that did not break the ice cover?
- throwaway5752 10y agoThe glacier covering it is a quarter to a half a mile thick.
- kijin 10y agoA half-mile ice cap means that the ice has accumulated at a rate of 8 meters per year since the last major eruption 99 years ago. That's equivalent to several dozen meters of snowfall per year. I wonder if the caldera really gets that much snow, or if the last few eruptions were too small to melt all the ice in the caldera.
- SideburnsOfDoom 10y agoI would assume that since a caldera is usually shaped like a cup, there is some flow towards the center where it's deeper. I.e. like with water flowing into a lake, the glacier has a catchment area.
- throwaway5752 10y agoI think both of you are correct. Just dumping links for the record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BDrdalsj%C3%B6kull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BDrdalsj%C3%B6kull is the glacier. "Mýrdalsjökull is an exceedingly wet location, with models suggesting it receives more than 10 metres of precipitation annually" Here is 30 yr avg annual precipitation (1970-2000) from the Icelandic Meteorological Office http://www.vedur.is/vedur/vedurfar/kort/medalurkoma_a/ http://www.vedur.is/vedur/vedurfar/kort/medalurkoma_a/ (Katla is under the deep blue southernmost area). The caldera has pronounce subsidence, as seen at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katla_(volcano)#/media/File:Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull_en_Katla.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katla_(volcano)#/media/File:Ey... For a bonus, about halfway down this has a picture of the glacier after a minor eruption: https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=372030 https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=372030
- SideburnsOfDoom 10y agoFrom being in Iceland for a few days, it appears to be an "exceedingly wet location" in general. Magnificent waterfalls are one effect.
- johansch 10y agoGreat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after_the_2010_Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull_eruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_travel_disruption_after_th...
- emodendroket 10y agoIt seems plausible to me that there could be much worse consequences than an air travel disruption if four volcanoes all have big eruptions.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- johansch 10y agoYeah, serious health consequences for people globally. In 1783 Laki erupted: http://www.economist.com/node/10311405 http://www.economist.com/node/10311405 "Japan suffered one of the three worst famines in its history in 1783-86, when exceptional cold destroyed the rice harvest and as many as 1m people died. Special crews had to be hired to clear the roads of the dead. In Japan this famine is usually attributed to another volcanic eruption, that of Mount Asama, but its impact was small compared with Laki's."
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Someone 10y agoIf we're very, very lucky, it counteracts global warming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Volcanic_activity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Volcanic_activi...), but it could also overdo that, as in the year without a summer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer)
- turbohedgehog 10y agoAt the time, there was a zero tolerance policy for volcanic ash with jet engines. However there are now upper bounds on the density of ash allowed, so if an Eyjafjallajökull-like eruption happened again today, not as much air traffic would have to shut down.
- abraves10001 10y agoWell, that had significantly less information than I was hoping for.
- tomhoward 10y agoI'm not usually much impressed by content on IFL Science, but their post about this topic seems quite good: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/four-icelands-volcanoes-priming-erupt/all/ http://www.iflscience.com/environment/four-icelands-volcanoe...
- throwaway7767 10y agoIt's the foreign section of mbl (morgunblaðið). Morgunblaðið is a highly partisan newspaper in Iceland owned by the fisheries industries. It's run at a loss but noone cares because their primary purpose is propaganda for their owners (to some extent this is the case for all media but they are particularly blatant about it). The english-language section on their site is just a place for them to sell ads-disguised-as-news to tourists. They have low-paid teenagers translating stories from the Icelandic version to maintain some semblance of being a news site. You'll never find good information in these, and oftentimes it's just plain bullshit.
- jboggan 10y agoI'm headed there Thursday, here's hoping it can hold off a few more days. On a related note, is WOW Air actually running flights below cost in some sort of promotion for Icelandic tourism? I know a lot of people in my social circle in LA who have all independently booked trips there solely because of the ridiculously cheap direct flights. I wonder if fermented shark tastes good with poisonous ash.
- yaur 10y agoI believe that it's subsidized by the government. What we found was that getting there was cheap but being there was ridiculously expensive.
- alistairSH 10y agoRenting a small flat in downtown Reykjavik using AirBnB was quite reasonable (I think around 95 USD/night). Car rental, gasoline, and food were all pricey. If you drink, check the rules for Duty Free at KEF - I believe it's local tax AND duty free, so you can buy when you arrive and carry into the country for much less than buying elsewhere. We didn't bother as we were only planning to drink a few bottles of wine.
- ajmurmann 10y agoFood isn't cheap. I recommend going to a super market like Bonus and by skyr, pastries (ideally kleinur), bananas and maybe some dried fish and just eat that for most meals. However, there are some well priced places. Cafe Haiti which has great lamb soup or C is for Cookie come to mind. Even Dill which has world class prix fixe is well priced for what it is. Interesting enough I've found most fish restaurants to be overpriced.
- M_Grey 10y agoIt tastes best with some kind of catastrophic injury to the olfactory centers of the brain.
- ajmurmann 10y agoI've been to Iceland several times and totally love it. Make sure to rent a car and get out of Reykjavik. Even driving around randomly to see there landscape is incredible.
- ironic_ali 10y agoHow much CO2 could these pump out?
- edmccard 10y ago>How much CO2 could these pump out? There are around 60-80 volcanic eruptions per year; for a total of about 300 million tons of CO2; so all four together, even if they produce twice as much as an average eruption, would account for about only 3.5 million tons. (Human-produced CO2 is estimated at between 20 to 30 billion tons per year)
- ironic_ali 10y agoWow, humans...
- c-smile 10y agoOh, please no! The world will die trying to pronounce another Eyjafjallajökull name.
- sehr 10y agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hSo_ND41-6g https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hSo_ND41-6g It's easier than you think!
- peterhartree 10y agoI live in Reykjavík. I was lucky enough to have a friend with a plane when Bárðarbunga erupted in 2014. Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/41812768@N07/albums/72157647247278902 https://www.flickr.com/photos/41812768@N07/albums/7215764724... If you're planning a visit to Iceland I'm happy to answer questions here or by email.
- kybishop 10y agoI've always wondered, do volcanoes wreak of sulfur? Even more so when erupting?
- cr1895 10y agoIceland's geysers certainly do.
- vacri 10y agowreak -> reek sulphur reeks havoc is wreaked
- peterhartree 10y agoThere was no smell from the plane. But the Bárðarbunga eruption did emit a lot of sulphur dioxide [1][2]. [1] http://en.vedur.is/pollution-and-radiation/volcanic-gas/measurements/nr/3036 http://en.vedur.is/pollution-and-radiation/volcanic-gas/meas... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%932015_eruption_of_B%C3%A1r%C3%B0arbunga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%932015_eruption_of_...
- robin_reala 10y agoI am wildly jealous.
- SideburnsOfDoom 10y agoIsn't it dangerous to fly over erupting volcanos? A lot of flights were grounded last time due to concerns about ash in the engines. And at that range, there might be a risk of fumes affecting the people?
- dfischer 10y agoHmm. Heading there Tuesday for Sonar. Hope it'll be safe.
- interfixus 10y agoTangential, but: That was a rare example of advertising done right. The top banner, from Air Iceland, is served inline as it should be, not from some sleazy external ad-provider. And here's the thing: It works. Made it past my uMatrix and various other filtering. And thus became probably the first internet ad for twenty years which I have knowingly clicked. Could the rest of the world please look and learn? [Edit: typo]
- vacri 10y agoDid you click because you actually wanted a Northern Lights holiday, or because it was novel? If the latter, then your traffic was pointless - if you weren't thinking of buying, then they won't be interested in your visit.
- interfixus 10y agoI clicked out of interest, yes. But of course they should be interested, no matter what. 'Conversion rate', I believe it's called.
- vacri 10y agoConversion rate for the entity paying for the ad is number of purchases against number of visits. A low conversion rate indicates a bad marketing activity.
- staticautomatic 10y agoI love that there's an Air Iceland ad on that page. Placement fail.
- juandazapata 10y agoIf any of needs a place to stay, my home in Colombia is honored to have some guests.
- troelsSteegin 10y agoPlease tell me it's because they are concerned about the Trump administration.
- runeks 10y agoSo, how good are we at actually predicting when these things will erupt?