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False Alarm. Iceland Met Says No Imminent Threat of Eruption
A story has been making the rounds in the British press and elsewhere that an eruption is imminent in Bárdarbunga in Vatnajökull. The news seems to be based on a misunderstanding of a TV interview with a specialist at the Icelandic Met Office earlier this week.
http://www.icelandreview.com/iceland..._0_a_id=373779 |
European volcanic upset could have been avoided 20/20 hindsight from Learmont |
Didn't I read somewhere, once upon a time, that there are
constant volcanic eruptions occuring all round the World? Minor ones, admittedly, but most pumping loads of crap into the atmosphere. |
Interesting article from the BBC on how 'officials got it wrong on volcanic ash'.
BBC News - Officials 'wrong' on volcanic ash |
Interesting article from the BBC on how 'officials got it wrong on volcanic ash'. |
I'm not sure I agree with that article. A quick scan read gives the impression that the earth scientists were actively telling the UK govt/CAA about the threat of volcanos. I can't remember any such thing. I think the problem is more that one group of scientists doesn't talk to another group. Earth scientists don't really talk to aerospace scientists, and neither group talks to the government.
Also, a quick literature search doesn't show up much evidence that Vulcanologists were warning of an imminent eruption, the only papers I can find related to iceland are saying the opposite. (edit) Rubbish spelling. |
Simon,
I am surmising that your statement: I'm not sure I agree with that article. A quick scan read gives the impression that the earth scientists were actively telling the UK govt/CAA about the threat of volcanos. I can't remember any such thing. I think the problem is more that one group of scientist isn't talking to another group. Earth scientists don't really talk to aerospace scientists, and neither group talks to the government. Also, a quick literature search doesn't show up much evidence that Vulcanologists were warning of an imminent eruption, the only papers I can find realted to iceland are saying hte opposite. "The broader Earth science community had been predicting events around Iceland for some considerable time," Mr Miller said. "That should have alerted the Civil Aviation Authority at a much, much earlier stage and we should have planned for that event." However, this quote is rather telling : Professor Beddington said: "We didn't expect volcanic ash - that wasn't on our risk assessment. It probably should have been when you look at the relative frequency of volcanic events in Iceland. We should have had that on the risk register". When asked whether the the government had got it wrong over volcanic ash, Prof Beddington replied: "We failed to predict it was a likely event - absolutely." |
This latest news report is some completely self-seeking publicity by "scientists" for their own works. Possibly at a time when government financial support for various projects, scientific and otherwise, is being reduced, we should expect more such.
If the scientists were saying that the huge no-fly area was completely inaccurately calculated, and scientists should have identified what was done was a nonsense, fair enough. But they don't. This is about them playing a part in predicting volcanic eruptions in the first place and how likely this is. They are saying that they would have predicted the Iceland volcano as more likely than was believed. What would be even more useful would be if they had predicted by scientific means that after 999 volcano eruptions in recent years which were handled fine, the 1,000th would result in ludicrous behaviour by civil servants who do not know one end of a volcano fromn the other. Clever presentation of the press release allows a perception to be made to many that they are saying that if we had paid more attention to scientists, there wouldn't have been the disruption. It comes over like this in this morning's TV summaries which show a backdrop of thousands sat in departure lounges, the implication being that we would not have been sat there, delayed, if scientists had been listened to. Reading the report fully (which few will do) shows they don't say any such thing. |
WHBM,
You're on the money there. One should always scratch beneath the surface for the reality, not take PR at face value. This situation is no different. Flawed computer models may have exaggerated the effects of an Icelandic volcano eruption that has grounded tens of thousands of flights, stranded hundreds of thousands of passengers and cost businesses hundreds of millions of euros. The computer models that guided decisions to impose a no-fly zone across most of Europe in recent days are based on incomplete science and limited data, according to European officials. As a result, they may have over-stated the risks to the public, needlessly grounding flights and damaging businesses. "It is a black box in certain areas," Matthias Ruete, the EU's director-general for mobility and transport, said on Monday, noting that many of the assumptions in the computer models were not backed by scientific evidence. European authorities were not sure about scientific questions, such as what concentration of ash was hazardous for jet engines, or at what rate ash fell from the sky, Mr. Ruete said. "It's one of the elements where, as far as I know, we're not quite clear about it," he admitted. He also noted that early results of the 40-odd test flights conducted over the weekend by European airlines, such as KLM and Air France, suggested that the risk was less than the computer models had indicated. – Financial Times The US is to slash all funding for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the result of a proposed budget amendment by Republican Party Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer that was voted in on Saturday. The US House of Representatives, which has a Republican majority, has agreed to remove $2.3m from the IPCC funding budget as part of $61bn in cuts that were voted through. Luetkemeyer slammed the cross-governmental IPCC for engaging in ‘dubious’ scientific methods in what was dubbed the Climategate scandal. The UN environmental body was accused of covering-up scientific results and arguments that opposed climate change theory, as its employees were asked to destroy certain emails. Luetkemeyer reportedly wrote, ‘The IPCC is an entity that is fraught with waste and fraud, and engaged in dubious science, which is the last thing hard-working American taxpayers should be paying for.’ Ash cloud models – overrated? A word on Post Normal Science by Dr. Jerome Ravetz | Watts Up With That? Here is what Professor Jerom Ravetz of Oxford has to say about the issue (via email): Interim contribution to the Post-Normal Science debate. Considering the effects of the Icelandic volcano on air transport, we seem to have:
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Originally Posted by stuckgear
WHBM, You're on the money there
Originally Posted by WHBM
This latest news report is some completely self-seeking publicity by "scientists" for their own works.
This "latest news report" concerns the witness of the government's chief scientist before a Parliamentary Committee, which is currently holding hearings. PBL |
Good couple of reports here from the Royal Aeronuatical Society on Ash Cloud lessons and implications for the aerospace sector...
Under the ash cloud | Aerospace Insight | The Royal Aeronautical Society and a more in-depth free specialist paper to d/l too... http://www.aerosociety.com/cms/uploa...lcanic_Ash.pdf |
Originally Posted by PBL
(Post 6282286)
This "latest news report" concerns the witness of the government's chief scientist before a Parliamentary Committee, which is currently holding hearings.
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The farce has been subject to thread discussions at length and there is not much point in rehashing the whole lot again and run around in circles. If you want to push an agenda then fine, thats up to you, but expect to be called on it. Of course, you're more than welcome to disagree with my comments, but disagreeing with them on a political basis that I'm not even aware of is a bit much ;) |
"Europe was right to halt flights after volcano" - New Scientist
New Scientist reports on the Proceedings of the US National Academy of Sciences:
The ash pumped out by the Icelandic volcano last year posed a serious risk to aircraft, a new analysis suggests, vindicating the decision to halt flights over Europe following the eruption. [Fred Prata of the Norwegian Institute for Air Research] says the results show Europe was right to close its airspace. But, he adds, with better monitoring – including the sorts of real-time measurements Stipp carried out – it would be possible to keep some airspace open, with planes steered into corridors away from the worst of the ash. |
This press release is already running in the Tech section
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The question is why airline executives have not been sued or even prosecuted for failing they duty to shareholders and having Business Impact Analysis (which they are supposed to act upon) and Business Continuity Plan for this event?
It is a legal requirement, after all, to do this and they were fully aware of the potential impact. |
Why is it that my car is getting more crap on it now than when we were all scare mongered about the volcanic ash earlier?
Will we be having no fly zones to prevent a build up of pollen, and in turn honey, in jet engines clogging them up? |
Tests on ash show volcano flight ban was right - Herald Scotland | News | Home News
"Some critics questioned whether it was justified, but now the new scientific report published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes it was. Researchers analysed samples of ash from the volcano and found they were capable of causing an air disaster. The fragments remained sharp and abrasive even after attempts to blunt the particles by stirring them in water. They would have sandblasted aircraft windows, making them impossible to see through, and could have stalled engines. The report is at odds with claims made by airlines after European airspace was closed last year. Some operators said that safety measures imposed by the semi-privatised air traffic control organisation, Nats, were an over-reaction." The researchers, led by Dr Sigurdur Gislason from the University of Iceland, wrote: “The very sharp, hard particles put aircraft at risk from abrasion on windows and body and from melting in jet engines. In the lab, ash particles did not become less sharp during two weeks of stirring in water, so airborne particles would remain sharp even after days of interaction with each other and water in clouds. Thus, concerns for air transport were well-grounded.” |
The issue was never whether ash can cause damage to aircraft and engines, of course it can, the experiences of BA in Indonesia and KLM in Alaska are well enough documented.
The issue was with the critical density within the cloud and at its margins, how it was moving and how it was dissipating; I haven't read the report, but does it really make a convincing case that a sufficiently high risk necessitated the closure of airspace as far as the Adriatic coast within the first couple of days of the event? If so, how was it that this risk had suddenly disappeared by day 4, when almost all the affected airspace was reopened, leaving the 'danger area' where it had been all the time, a relatively limited region, at a relatively limited altitude, over the sea between Iceland, Scotland and Norway. |
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