Satellites Keep Aircraft Away From Volcanic Cloud 109
coondoggie writes "A range of satellites from a host of different nations are pumping out images and data on the Icelandic volcano currently wreaking havoc on commercial airline traffic and aviation in general. The European Space Agency today noted four major satellites that are monitoring the volcano that erupted this week under Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull glacier. They include NASA's Aqua and Aura as well as the European Space Agency's Envisat and MetOp spacecraft. Other satellites such as NASA's Terra and NOAA's GOES satellite also provide images." Updated 20100416 01:17 GMT by timothy: Apropos that, 2Y9D57 writes with this "Image of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, after it began erupting on 15 April. Acquired by the German TerraSAR-X synthetic aperture radar satellite from a height of about 500 kilometers / 300 miles."
Pro editing (Score:1, Insightful)
The four major satellites that are providing key information on the European Space Agency today noted four major satellites that are monitoring the volcano that erupted this week under Iceland's Eyjafjallajoekull glacier.
Quality editing there timothy.
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At least the name of the glacier is spelled correctly. Eyjafjallajoekull [wikipedia.org] is quite a mouthful.
Actually, the correct spelling appears to be: Eyjafjallajökull [wikipedia.org]. Wikipedia just points "Eyjafjallajoekull" to the correct page. I suggest the following spelling change: Ayayayfalafeljoe'sskull
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Replacing an umlaut with vowel + e is the normal way to do it when printing for a language that lacks umlauts. I have to do this if I use my mother's maiden name for any services.
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You realise that Icelanders do naming differently, not having "surnames" there is no such things as a "mothers maiden name" there
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Has Slashdot? I bet you had to type that using HTML escape codes.
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äöäöäö. No.
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But, those are part of ISO-8859-1 of course.
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Ooh. They do actually seem to have added it. The last time I typed in Spanish with accents it broke, pero ahora no está para reñir.
Surely you mean "Arpapos" editing... (Score:1, Informative)
apropos [ap-ruh-poh]
–adverb
1. fitting; at the right time; to the purpose; opportunely.
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Really now (Score:1, Redundant)
Huh... the four major satellites are noting four major satellites? That's a bit of tautological recursion.
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The four major satellites that are providing key information on the European Space Agency today noted four major satellites that are monitoring the volcano ...
Perhaps the satellites are self-aware? Isn't this how Skynet got out of hand?
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That's a bit of tautological recursion.
Don't blame /. This is exactly how it is written in TFA (I know, I know.. I must be new here etc).
Although since the article author is Michael Cooney and the story was submitted by "coondoggie" I suspect they are one and the same.
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Huh... the four major satellites are noting four major satellites? That's a bit of tautological recursion.
"Stamp out redundancy and do away with it."
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Huh... the four major satellites are noting four major satellites? That's a bit of tautological recursion.
Well, if you were a satellite, what would you rather monitor? Some boring old volcano or that sexy little number down the street? Why, her cowling's so small her gyroscopes are showing!
Eya... what? (Score:1)
Re:Eya... what? (Score:5, Funny)
Ok seriously where does this name come from
"Eyjafjallajoekull" translates to: All your ash are belong to us
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Ok seriously where does this name come from
"Eyjafjallajoekull" translates to: All your ash are belong to us
We have Summer and Winter Olympics, and we also have Mordor and Iceland. Long live duality!
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Actually, given the situation, it's more like "All of my ash are now belong to you".
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"...except Europa. Attempt no takeoffs/landings there."
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The last wish of the dying Icelandic financial system was to have it's ashes spread all over Europe.
You're welcome.
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Ok seriously where does this name come from
It can be translated to "The Island mountains glacier"
/ AC because I can't be bothered to log in after working long hours due to said volcano :)
Re:Eya... what? (Score:5, Informative)
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You mean like Lake Forest Park [google.com]?
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HAHAHAHA
Wait, I don't get why it's funny...
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It's missing an "r"?
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Icelandic is an agglutinative language like German
So, I hope that the Dieimmeislandlebendenorwegischevolkergruppentypen are performing Fehlerbehebungsmassnahmen, in order to cap that volcano.
That second, really long word, actually popped up in my email once.
. . . agglutinative . . .
"Hmmm, agglutinative . . . my word for the day. "Schatz, I'm feeling at bit agglutinative. Let's stop and get something to eat."
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Space program (Score:5, Insightful)
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NB: I only mean this as a joke.
Re:Space program (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Space program (Score:4, Informative)
ESA / Arianespace did not develop manned spaceflight capability; and yet they have very large chunk of satellite launching business (with 50+% of geostationary ones). Even when their manned spacecraft will show up, it will be probably a modification of unmanned ATV.
(note: I'm pro manned spaceflight, if done well; just sayin'...)
Re:Space program (Score:5, Interesting)
How do you think those satellites got there? How do you think that technology was refined enough to work? Yeah, MANNED SPACE FLIGHT is what pushes the boundaries. It is what allows all the rest of this.
History suggests that you have it the wrong way around. It is unmanned flight that pushes the boundaries, human flight trailing along far behind. Sputnik came before Gagarin. Luna-9/Surveyor landed on the moon before Apollo. Voyager/Cassini/Mars Rovers came before - well, before anything at all. Right now, Voyager 1 has passed the heliopause - it has left the solar system. Meanwhile, humans fix the toilets in LEO. How is that pushing the boundary? Humans are the vestigial organ of space exploration and exploitation. They've never been needed, and never will be.
Unless these satellites have to breath air or produce urine for some reason, chances are that the technology they use owes nothing to human spaceflight.
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One small counter to this is that manned space flight encourages vastly increased safety.
This is incorrect. Multibillion dollar payloads are more valuable than astronauts (though perhaps not more valuable than the costs of blame finding sessions after humans are lost on a launch vehicle). The need for reliability doesn't diminish when you don't put people on a flight. What is different is that humans require different handling, for example, more abort options (since a human can possibly be recovered from a failed flight, especially with some sort of crew escape system in place, while a multibil
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The PR disaster of killing astronauts far outweighs their "commercial value" (which seems a rather mercenary way to think about risk assessment to be honest).
It's not mercenary, but merely rational. If you're going to repeated perform an activitiy and kill people, you need to approach it in a rational manner. For example, every time I hop into a car, I accept that I am deliberately putting other peoples' lives in danger. To mitigate that potential harm, I attempt to drive safely. But I don't choose not to drive.
Also, the PR disaster is merely a NASA bureaucratic problem. There's indication to me that they can handle this much better. For example, airlines kil
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Oh who cares, really? It's all about diversity. If we do less technological R&D, we have less technology.
Re:Space program (Score:4, Informative)
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Uhhh. How do you think we first explored space? We sent probes (aka satellites) up there (Sputnik ring any bells?).
Did the original Sputnik actually probe anything? I thought it just was just a way for the USSR to demonstrate to the USA that it was capable of putting something into orbit and, by inference, put an ICBM on Eisenhower's front porch if it wanted to.
Volcano research (Score:3, Informative)
I also remember some Congress person complaining about the government paying for volcano research. I think they were from Louisiana or Mississippi and they laughed at what a waste of money it is for their citizens to pay to study volcanoes. Don't we already know everything about them anyway?
Well, sir, this is why. If a volcano blows, it affects more than its immediate neighbors.
Thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
Pilot: So where is this eruption at?
Control: I'm sorry, I've talked to the other three guys here and we don't have a clue how to pronounce the name of this glacier. I don't think we can help you. Good luck!
Futile effort, when the solution is so simple (Score:3, Insightful)
Behold! Bow under the wrath of Loki, heretics! Renounce your faith from the far lands and return to truthfull ways of your ancestors!
(Loki the trickster; those are just tricks, you haven't seen nothing yet...)
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ITIM not a single volcano, but a deity which might be the closest to them in the only true mythology.
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Raw feeds? (Score:4, Informative)
So I guess the /. question is can we see their raw feeds?
NASA Aqua
NASA Aura
NASA's Terra
European Space Agency's Envisat
European Space Agency's MetOp
NOAA's GOES: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite
- http://www.goes.noaa.gov/ [noaa.gov]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA [wikipedia.org]
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_Operational_Environmental_Satellite [wikipedia.org]
Space research always pays for itself in the long term. The acronyms in the NOAA GOES got me interested.
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http://lance.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
http://satepsanone.nesdis.noaa.gov/pub/OMI/OMISO2/index.html [noaa.gov]
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So is this a near-current image of Iceland then?
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T101061035 [nasa.gov]
The sky over Germany looked clear today (Score:3, Interesting)
At what density is volcanic ash dangerous to aircraft turbines and what is the damage mechanism? On the satellite images, it looks like the air space south of Scotland was only peripherally affected by the plume coming from the volcano. I wonder if the widely dispersed ash is really that much of a problem.
Re:The sky over Germany looked clear today (Score:5, Insightful)
Volcanic ash has this nasty habit of clumping mightily with liquids.
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Because the material is extremely porous?
Re:The sky over Germany looked clear today (Score:5, Informative)
Not directly answering your question, but:
PICTURES: Finnish F-18 engine check reveals effects of volcanic dust [flightglobal.com]
Finnish fighter jets damaged by volcanic cloud [canada.com]
Original article of Finnish Air Force (in Finnish) [ilmavoimat.fi]
Re:The sky over Germany looked clear today (Score:5, Informative)
It's dangerous in three main ways to an aircraft:
Least dangerous (relatively) is the st.elmos fire produced by static buildup (you are flying through a good static generator at high speed).
Next is the fact that you are flying through ash, which is a bit like sandpaper. The result is your turbines get sand blasted, ruining them in many ways. This is not an instant failure, most aircraft will just continue and get the engines repaired/replaced at next stop.
Most dangerous is the third. The glass, silica and other parts thrown into the air will melt in the high temperature of the turbine combustion chamber. This will then tend to fuse and block further combustion, resulting in the engine shutting down mid-air. Bad situation to be in, made worse by the fact there is no guarantee you can start it up again (normally after a few mins the gunk will solidify and break off, allowing you to restart the engine, but this isn't guaranteed (and this is assuming it breaks off before you impact the ground)
Re:The sky over Germany looked clear today (Score:5, Informative)
Also the abrasive effect of the ash can scratch the windows, particularly the forward facing ones the pilots look out of and it can abrade the aluminum skin, particularly the leading edges of the wings. Neither will bring the plane down but they can necessitate expensive repairs and if the windows become opaque enough it can make landing difficult.
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Re:The sky over Germany looked clear today (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone know at what density the ash is a hazard? This is the first large scale grounding of commercial aircraft due to a volcanic eruption that I can remember. Wikipedia lists an all engine out on a 747 in 1982 but maybe there are more cases.
Volcanic ash above some concentration is certainly a hazard, but this seems like a lot of airspace for a modest eruption.
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"Hi, this is your captain speaking. Due to cost-cutting measures, there is no in flight entertainment. Please look out your windoww, and look at St. Elmo's fire instead, as we will be flying through volcanic ash. When the engines cut out, and we start to dive, please raise your hands above your head, and shout "Weeeeeeeeeeeee!"
The sky over Germany looked clear today
That sounds like a spy sign / counter-sign phrase:
Spy 1: "It is warm in Moscow this spring.
Spy 2: "The camels are in heat."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9 [wikipedia.org]
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Could someone please show me a good reason why short distance low level VFR helicopter traffic, landing practices
Amazing what they can do these days... (Score:5, Funny)
Satellites Keep Aircraft Away From Volcanic Cloud
I didn't realize satellites could fly so low, let alone herd airplanes like sheep. Amazing what they can do these days...
Whoa... (Score:2)
[Ah, those were the days...]
If this is Iceland, the pic is scary. (Score:3, Informative)
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?T101061035 [nasa.gov]
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Good news, everyone! It's not Iceland. It shows Svalbard (left) and Scandinavia (right). Look at the keymap (the globe icon on the left side). Actually, I'm not sure what your concern is. It's just a storm system. They're all over the place.
This image shows Iceland [nasa.gov] (in the upper left corner). Another way to look at the Terra/MODIS images is via the daily Arctic mosaic [nasa.gov]. Iceland is the the bottom of the mosaic [nasa.gov], and then you can click on it and get a more detailed view [nasa.gov], where the ash plume is visible a
Re:If this is Iceland, the pic is scary. (Score:5, Informative)
When this volcano blows a major Katla eruption follows soon after. Katla is about 10 miles East.
This one shuts down half the air travel in western Europe for a few days. Katla shuts down summer. The farmers are not worried about this volcano [icelandreview.com]:
"I am not afraid of this eruption but I fear Katla. It might not happen immediately but it will happen. Then we will be talking about much more power," Agnarsson said.
It has to do with the type of plate tectonics here. The plates are pulling apart, yielding a very deep rift that releases very hot magma from very far down in the mantle, which is saturated with CO2 and when released goes very high, far, thick and long. Naturally this will melt a great deal of Iceland glacier very quickly, impacting the currents in the Atlantic.
Re:If this is Iceland, the pic is scary. (Score:4, Informative)
"It has to do with the type of plate tectonics here. The plates are pulling apart, yielding a very deep rift that releases very hot magma from very far down in the mantle, which is saturated with CO2 and when released goes very high, far, thick and long. Naturally this will melt a great deal of Iceland glacier very quickly, impacting the currents in the Atlantic."
This is true for all of the volcanoes in Iceland. They are related to the rifting that occurs along the mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the North American plate is stretching away from the Eurasian Plate. The magma comes up the cracks and eventually erupts onto the surface. CO2 has little or nothing to do with melting the glaciers. The heat of the lava at the vent does, and the contact with the water produces much of the explosiveness that eventually produces ash and lofts it into the atmosphere. The climatic effects are mainly from a combination of the ash particles and aerosols such as sulphur dioxide, and they are mostly cooling effects due to obscuring the Sun, however, Eyjafjallajokull is not a big enough eruption -- so far -- to have a significant climatic effect. Katla, by contrast, is a much larger volcanic center and has historically had much bigger eruptions, hence the worry if that one blows too. The effect on Atlantic ocean water is negligible except around Iceland itself.
There are plenty of the more technical details at the Nordic Volcanological Center [norvol.hi.is] site, including a link to this paper [norvol.hi.is] [PDF] that has ample detail about these two volcanoes and their historical and more modern behaviour. It isn't cause for optimism. The key phrase from the introduction is that eruptions at Katla [wikipedia.org] have been up to 2km3 in volume, whereas those at Eyjafjallajokull "have been negligible in historic times and range in the 0.1km3 scale. This is a "small" eruption. Really. Even with that "negligible" volume, the most recent eruption lasted from 1821 to 1823, and was with Katla erupting simultaneously. These eruptions have sometimes A) lasted for many months or years, and B) been much, much larger if Katla erupts too. Not to mention the local effects such as even bigger jokulhlaups [wikipedia.org] than have been triggered so far, and for some eruptions (e.g., Laki [wikipedia.org] in the 1700s), release of toxic gasses such as HF too. Sometimes the eruptions are no big deal, and they wane and stop over a few weeks. Sometimes they are nasty and prolonged. It isn't clear what this one will do, but if there are signs that Katla is going to join in ... be prepared for something much more awful.
Please mod parent informative (Score:2)
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Nicely written for an AC. :
Only one significant alteration
"WHEN" it blows, not "IF".
Another eruption of Katla is a racing certainty ; when it happens is much more open to question. It seems from historical records that there's a high probability that it'll go in the next few months to years. Which will make life interesting.
Slight coating of ash on the car yesterday morn
Wallpaper Images? (Score:2)
Anyone have a link to some of the better pics of the ash explosion? There was a great thumbnail sized pic that was circulating on all the news stories when it first erupted but nobody's seen the high res original yet. Post cool, high res ash explosion pics in your replies. Thanks!
NASA Image: Ash Plume across the North Atlantic (Score:2, Interesting)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=43670 [nasa.gov]
Imagine if it continues for days or weeks (Score:2)
Laws (Score:3, Funny)
We are forbidden to burn rubbish in our gardens in case the ash destroys the ozone layer or whatever. Anybody have any stats as to the eco-damage those pesky icelanders are doing with their volcano?
Increased geological activity? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Earthquakes [iris.edu] look pretty typical to me, notoriety isn't the same thing as frequency or intensity. Also the glaciers have been melting for the entire Holocene [wikipedia.org], so that's really not unusual and to top it all off the polar ice caps have rebounded [nsidc.org] to normal levels. Some scientists have made a similar assertion to icecap melting leading to increased vulcanism;
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Humm... it seems like we are seeing an increase in earthquakes...
No, we're not. It really isn't a good idea to use the media to measure how something 'increases'.
Meow. (Score:2)
I'm wondering if journalists and bloggers are finding they have to disable their catlike-typing [bitboost.com] detection software everytime they need to input the word "Eyjafjallajökull".
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If they've got any sense they're copy-pasting. Hopefully from a reliable source.