Iceland in Pictures

“Ash covered icebergs from the Grímsvötn volcano eruption” may not be totally accurate. True these icebergs are full of ash, and true much if it probably comes from Grímsvötn. However, none if any, comes from the recent 2011 eruption in Grímsvötn. This ice which breaks into the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon is packed with history. This ice originally came down as snow far up on the glacier, decades or centuries ago. There it would snow for many years, until an eruption occurred. At that point a layer of ash, just as in the recent eruption, would cover the entire glacier. The next year it begins snowing again and that layer of ash gets covered in ash. The Vatnajökull glacier gets covered by ash in layers of variable thicknesses many times over a century. When the ice finally breaks into the lagoon, these lines become visible. (If you want to be picky, some of these lines are not ash, but most are, so lets keep it simple in this post.)

So MSNBC has got it wrong this time. The really nice pictures it has of the paddle boarders on Jökulsárlón, have nothing to do with the recent Grímsvötn eruption.

However there was plenty of new ash on these ice bergs which can be seen in other places.

poculum:

Ash covered icebergs from the Grimsvotn volcano eruption, in the glacier lagoon at the base of Vatnajokull, Iceland.

Ingolfur Juliusson / Reuters

Source

(via poculum-deactivated20120319)

Imagine driving into a cloud of ash such as this one or living inside one.

Photo by Fredrik Holm

(via mwsk-deactivated20110917)

After breathing dusty ash air all day, there’s nothing like fresh pipe smoke.

kero39:

Rescue worker Thorsteinn Jonsson smokes a pipe in the village of Kirkjubaejarklaustur May 24, 2011.
People living next to the glacier where the Grimsvotn volcano burst into life on Saturday were most affected, with ash shutting out the daylight and smothering buildings and vehicles. An ash cloud from a volcano on Iceland shut down flights in northern Britain and elsewhere in north Europe on Tuesday and was heading to Germany, but officials expected no repeat of last year’s air chaos.

REUTERS/Ingolfur Juliusson
Pictures and Galleries - AlertNet

Barack Obama Flees Icelandic Ash

Obama is forced to shorten his stay in Ireland due to the risk that Air Force 1 would be grounded due to ash. Not that I have anything against him, it would have been interesting to have him stuck on the wrong side of the pond. Ash distribution forecasts are predicting that ash from the Grímsvötn volcano might be carried to the British Isles tomorrow. Luckily, it is clearing up around the southwestern corner of Iceland and flights have resumed from the Keflavík Intl. airport.

The girls on the picture are not believed to be affiliated with Obama in any way.

I know I already posted this along with other satellite images of the Grímsvötn eruption. But it is just so cool by itself and tumblrs love animated gifs. Click on it to see in fullsize. People have been making remarks about the ash plume of this eruption, that it is quite unusual in shape and size. It has gone as high as 20km, which is very very high. And then at that altitude it still had the energy to spread out into a nuclear bomblike mushroom. For much more info about the eruption see the other Grímsvötn eruption posts.

Pictures from the Grímsvötn eruption in Iceland

It’s been less than 24 hours since the eruption began, but better photos are quickly emerging. For more details about the eruption read the first report of the Grímsvötn eruption and the second report. The following pictures are from the Icelandic news and friends.

This picture by Friðrik Páll Friðriksson shows the hotel, Fosshótel in Skaftafell. The bright picture is taken on the 21. May at 20:20, while the ash filled one is from the 22. May at 07:00.

This picture is also by Friðrik and taken in Skaftafell. As you can see considerable ash has fallen in this area.

People try to keep the fine grained ash from entering windows by closing them firmly and then using wet towels as a further seal.

Even though the eruption is very far from Reykjavík, it can still be seen in the far distance.

Complicated winds around the ash cloud make 20km high ash cloud difficult to predict.

Up close and personal with the Grímsvötn eruption.

The white you see below the ash cloud is the Vatnajökull glacier.

This photo by Jónas Erlendsson shows a rescue team in the affected area. An eruption like this one does not cause any actual danger for people. But rescue teams have been dispatched to distribute dust masks in the affected areas. Farmers need them to be able to comfortably tend to their animals outside.

This picture was taken by a friend of mine, Róbert Þór, who is working as a guide in Skaftafell. Skaftafell is the nearest inhabited area. The picture is one of the first taken of the eruption, last night.

This picture, taken by Róbert Reynisson, is from the only town significantly affected by the eruption. People in Kirkjubæjarklaustur are recommended to stay inside. However no areas are to be evacuated due to the eruption.

Grímsvötn eruption update

The Grímsvötn eruption that began yesterday is still churning out ash. At first there were limited details, as the volcano is very remote, under the middle of the great Vatnajökull glacier. Now scientists and reporters have flown over the area and gotten a closer look. There is a video of the eruption taken on one of these flights, narrated in English.

The effects it has caused in Iceland as of now, is ash fall in the near vicinity. Ash has fallen in the town of Kirkjubæjarklaustur and in Skaftafell for example. Police have closed the road over Skeiðarársandur, not because of the risk of floods, but due to near zero visibility in the ash.

The plume of ash has risen 20km into the sky. Iceland’s favorite news reporter, Ómar Ragnarsson, flew around the volcano today. He says this is the 23rd and largest eruption he has seen.

The effects on air traffic is what the international community is most interested. Currently the ash is only looming over Iceland and not on its way abroad. The preliminary reports state that the ash is thicker and heavier than from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. This is a good thing. If the ash is thick and heavy it is less likely to drift out to Europe or North America. All the major airports in Iceland are open at the moment, but Keflavík, the main international airport is expected to close later today. However people are hoping that the Akureyri airport will be able to stay open and flights can be routed through there. During the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, Iceland’s airports were actually more often open than many major European airports. This is because if you are close to the source, you can always fly upwind of the eruption, and Iceland has airports around the island. The problem today is lack of wind (unusual in windy Iceland), allowing the cloud to loom over much of the country.

The ice on the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon is blackened by ash today. You can see a live webcam of Jökulsárlón that shows the black ice bergs and ash misty air. The same website also has two cameras pointed towards Grímsvötn. They haven’t worked for me yet, I guess they are overloaded with traffic, but you can try. Grímsvötn camera 1 and Grímsvötn camera 2.

Ash fall during the Eyjafjallajökull eruption last year.

Ólafur Eggertsson, the farmer at Þorvaldseyri at the base of the volcano, recently said that he had moved some 400 tons of ash from his fields. However this is nothing since during most of the eruption the volcano was spewing out 600 tons of ash per second. Can you imagine how much material that is? Don’t think so.

(Source: bearsinmymacbook)

Katla is along with Hekla, Askja, Grímsvötn (due to erupt), Surtsey and now recently Eyjafjallajökull, one if Iceland’s best known volcanoes. It is a large and fairly active volcano situated underneath the Mýrdalsjökull glacier. It has erupted somewhere around 20 times in the just over 1000 years since Iceland was first settled. This means that on average it erupts about once per century. Most likely eruptions occurred in 930, 1179, 1245, 1262, 1311, 1416, 1580, 1625, 1660, 1721, 1755, 1823, 1860 and 1918. There might have been a small eruption in 1955, but it at least did not break through the ice. The only thing that can be said for sure is that Katla is far from done. It will keep erupting for more generations to come than we can imagine. The odds that it will erupt in our generation are, considering its repertoire, very high. Many will have remember that scare mongerers and journalists announced that Katla always erupts after an Eyjafjallajökull eruption, such as last year. However that “always” statistic is based on three previous historical Eyjafjallajökull eruptions. Not very convincing for a volcanologist. However, Katla is due for an eruption and whether Eyjafjallajökull relieved pressure or induced is hard to say. We can be quite sure that they are closely related though.

There are a few traditional problems with eruptions in Katla and a new one. The new one is trouble with jet engines. As during the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, a Katla eruption could easily ground flights in much of the northern hemisphere (don’t mess with Iceland). The traditional problems are the problems that Katla’s neighbors have been dealing with for centuries. These are ash and floods. The ash clouds can block the sun for the days, weeks, months or years that the eruption goes on. Pretty much killing all the local farming prosperity and being a major bummer. The ash also covers fields, roads and houses, dams rivers and creates mud slides. The second problem and perhaps more severe, at least in the short term is the danger of flash floods. Since Katla is underneath the middle of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, a lot of ice will melt. This meltwater will at first collect into a large boiling pool in the middle of the glacier until it has created enough pressure to break through the glacier in a rush towards the sea. At this point there is no stopping it (and never was). The outlet of this mighty river that has been estimated to reach 300.000 cubic meters per second, one and a half times the Amazon, is very unsure. It may go down Sólheimajökull or Kötlujökull on the souther side or anywhere on the northern side. We can only be sure that it will blast a path to the sea somewhere. This flood full of ice bergs, boulders, cliffs and volcanic ashy mud can cause great destruction. For good reason there are few things other than roads in the most likely paths. However once it hits the sea a swell will occur forming a wave similar to a tsunami. This tsunami will reverberate and crash back into the southern coastline. This is a great danger to the small cute town of Vík and the reason why the houses older than 1918 tend to be built up on the hill.

For all but the nearest neighbors the danger is not immediate. The closest neighbors have to contend with the flash floods, but the rest of Iceland would only have to deal with ash fall. This ash fall can be a problem, but is not an immediate threat in any way.

A farm below the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. For months the neighbors of this mighty volcano had to put up with weeks of pitch black ash fog, 24 hours of thundering rumbles, ash in their ears and the international press. They took it like they take everything nature throws at them: “Þetta reddast” (E. =~ It will work itself out).

a-moveable-feast:

by Kjartan Þorbjörnsson

Eyjafjallajökull on full power last spring.