Incredible Footage Of The Volcanic Cloud That's Causing Flight Chaos Around The World

[Turborama]

Run time: 02:17 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLWWz4DR4UY   Posted on YouTube: April 17, 2010 By YouTube Member: AlJazeeraEnglish Views on YouTube: 256   Posted on DU: April 17, 2010 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 3812

 
(Best watched on full screen set at 480)

The eruption of an Icelandic volcano has paralysed air traffic in much of Europe and other parts of the world.

It is is showing no signs of slowing down and scientists are wary of making any predicitons. The last time a volacano erupted in southern Iceland, nearly two centuries go, it lasted two years.

David Chater reports from one of the first flights to make out of European airspace - an Iceland flight from Glasgow, Scotland to Rekvik. (April 17 2010)

-

AP has some good raw footage of the volcano, too.

A lingering volcanic ash plume forced extended no-fly restrictions over much of Europe on Saturday, as Icelandic scientists warned that volcanic activity had increased and showed no sign of abating. (April 17)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS9FgSVKeN4

More awesome footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYv8KDbUOls

Lots more vids on the right of this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q4w3gwpqiw

[dipsydoodle]

1. I think you'll find

that the one which lasted 2 years was the adjacent volcano which is considerably larger and lies on the same faultline. Current major concern is that may blow too. If it did then next winter could be a real bitch in Europe.

[Turborama]

2. If that one blows it's going to be entirely different story

Are you seeing any changes in the sky or noticing any difference in the air where you are?

[dipsydoodle]

7. Not noticeably.

with regrad to air. I had also been looking out of curiousity to see if the sky changed colour at sunset but no.

:hi:

[JawJaw]

33. I Live Near Cardiff Airport

Nice to see clear skies for a change, although they are not a deep blue - it's quite hazy

This really exposes the Achilles heel of air transport - both for travellers and transport of resources.

The experts don't really know how long this thing could go on.

All of a sudden, the UK Green Party's manifesto of locally grown produce, and decent publically-owned high-speed rail networks doesn't seem quite so "fringe" anymore...

[truedelphi]

9. Many Northern European nations were already facing different and much

Colder growing seasons. (I hate the moniker, "Global Warming." It should be "Global Climate Crisis.") Finnish farmers have for some time been altering the crops they plant and the types of schedules that they are on. This was due to the changes in ocean current, making that area of the world colder than usual. (Even Britain, further to the south, has been suffering from this.)

On the other hand, the USA will probably be happier with a few degrees shaved off its summer weather.

[northernlights]

22. Katla is now "groaning" according to scientists

The last few times this one has blown, Katla has followed within a year or so...

[DFW]

3. I'm still trembling as to whether I make it outta here tomorrow

I've got an 8:20 AM flight out of Düsseldorf (the airport here is set to open at 8), connecting to a 10:20 flight
to DFW. If my flight out of Düsseldorf is late and the flight from Amsterdam to Dallas leaves on time, I'm sunk.

[virgogal]

5. Good luck to you. You will be in my thoughts.

[truedelphi]

10. You might not have known that Michael Cleese rented a TAXI

To get himself from Oslo to Brussels. A mere $ 5,200 or so! (Keith Olbermann reported on this.)

And Cleese still needs to get back to London.

And like other Du'ers express, my thoughts are with you.

[DFW]

12. Thanks, but it looks like I'm going nowhere tomorrow

No airline in northern or Central Europe is even taking bookings now before Wednesday :-(

Cleese can get from Brussels to London via the Eurostar train. So can I. He can also
afford $5200 for a taxi (I can't). I could use the same way to get to London, but then
I'd be just as stuck there as I am here.

[Grassy Knoll]

25. Keith Olbermann reported on John Cleese, who is Michael Cleese ?

[truedelphi]

28. I meant John Cleese - sorry about that.

My brain's not dead, it is only sleeping...

[begin_within]

40. This may be a dumb question

but isn't there any boat service between Oslo and Brussels that he could have taken?

[keopeli]

30. Good luck to you.

If you don't make it, you won't be alone. Consider alternatives, such as a train to a southern country (Italy, Spain) with a flight to Atlanta and DFW. Just a thought. Sorry for your predicament.


:hi: :pals:

[DFW]

34. Thanks, that was my first thought

But Malpensa, the closest airport that came to mind, has also been closed, and so is Barcelona.

Madrid, Rome and Lisbon are extremely long train rides from here, and the flights out of there are hopelessly
fully booked. For people from France and northern Italy and Spain, it's a much shorter land trip to those airports,
and my travel agent here said don't even bother. If I had more time, I'd grab a boat! Moscow is also nearly a three
day train trip from here, and I'd still need a visa for Russia anyway.

[virgogal]

4. Thanks for this post---I'm sending it to everyone I know.

Nature can certainly bring us to our knees.

[Turborama]

6. It sure can. I find it very humbling

watching the footage of this volcano and reflecting on the enormity of its impact.

You're most welcome, it's nice to hear you found it as worth passing on as I did.

[FredStembottom]

8. I'm surprised by the rumble.

Just being Some Guy in Minnesota, I was never sure if volcanoes made such a continuous, loud rumble.
With my only experience of volcanoes being Hollywood movies, I always wondered how much of that noise was true-to-life and how much was just done for effect.

this one really is in Super Sensurround!

[Donnachaidh]

11. I wonder if we're looking at a re-run of this from wikipedia --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

The Year Without a Summer (also known as the Poverty Year, Year There Was No Summer and Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death<1>) was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities destroyed crops in Northern Europe, the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada.<2><3> Average global temperatures decreased about 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1.3 °F),<4> enough to cause significant agricultural problems around the globe.

Historian John D. Post has called this "the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world".<5>

Most consider the climate anomaly to have been caused by a combination of a historic low in solar activity with a volcanic winter event; the latter caused by a succession of major volcanic eruptions capped off by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, the largest known eruption in over 1,600 years.

[truedelphi]

13. I believe we are having solar highs again,

But I do remember hearing about this "endless" winter when reading about the history of the New York and New England States' area during that time.

People survived on account of game still being plentiful - plenty of deer and bird life to bag and put on the table.

But crops were a totally different story.

[Donnachaidh]

16. many of my family went through this in the Maritimes

It was pretty difficult, as they were a fairly *new* colony. They survived because they'd utilized caves to keep seafood frozen.

With all this ash, you have to wonder what will happen if this thing keeps spewing.

[truedelphi]

17. It might bring an end to the drought in Australia.

At least, I am hoping there are unintended good things that will happen as a result of the ash.

You told a very interesting tidbit about the caves and yr family relying on them. It is very hard to conceive of what life was like back in those days. (Of course, they could always order food over the internet, right? And just have it come to them courtesy of UPS or Fed Ex, right?)

[Donnachaidh]

18. err nooooo -- Nova Scotia/Cape Breton is far north enough

and it was certainly cold enough for them to use the deepest caves to store food that needed to be frozen. And it could stay frozen well into the summer.

That may come as a shock to folks used to Frigidaires in every house, but those folks knew how to *put up* food in ways we don't have memories of. I would dig into my family history stuff to find the exact info, but we're packing to move, and I don't dare dig it out.

Even today - we visited a couple of years back, and an older family member showed me her modern day *root cellar* under her house. Dug in, kept dry and very cool - she can store all sorts of goodies and not worry about famine. Home canned stuff - all put up by the family. Not Stouffer's.

We've given up a lot of our heritage for *convenience*.

[truedelphi]

27. I want to mention that I spent the summer of '72 in Toronto

And although the Canadians I met were great, my absolute faves were people from Novia Scotia.

They were just so much fun, so generous and boisterous. I have no idea if most NS'ers are like that - it is bad to paint everyone with a broad cloth, but whenever I think of that summer, I think of them.

When you get settled, it would be neat if you did unpack the family history stuff. To share with the rest of us here on DU.

And good luck on the headache of moving. Hope you and your belongings land on your feet.

[dbmk]

14. Nah.

You would be able to tell if it was that bad. There is not more ash in the air than it is virtually invisible (over the rest of Europe that is). Back then it visibly affected the sky.

Now, if Katla blows..

List of volcanoes in Iceland. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_volcanoes_in_Iceland

They are estimated to have produced half of the erupted lava in the world over the last 500 years..
A country with about 300.000 citizens..

Now if one of the REALLY big ones blows... - of which you have 3, I think, in the US. Yellowstone is coming up on its average time between explosions... and that would mean goodbye to sunlight for while - and to a good part of the Western US. (The rest will probably only be buried in a foot of ash..)

And we have 6 or 7 of those around the world.. And no way of controlling them. All we can hope for is decent warning. Good thing is there is little chance of this happening any time soon. :) Yellowstones average is 700.000 years and its 640.000 years since the last time if I remember correctly. Give or take. :)

[Donnachaidh]

19. If yellowstone goes that would be an ELE

Extinction level event. That caldera is a super-volcano.

I still think we're going to be seeing some wonky-assed weather due to Iceland - especially if it keeps pumping out massive amounts of ash.

[dbmk]

21. Of course

It might very well have a noticable impact. Just not quite as dramatic as not getting summer, I think. :)

[Donnachaidh]

29. umm do you know what an ELE is?

EXTINCTION LEVEL EFFECT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event

:snip:

Since life began on Earth, several major mass extinctions have significantly exceeded the background extinction rate. The most recent, the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, occurred 65 million years ago, and has attracted more attention than all others as it marks the extinction of nearly all dinosaur species, which were the dominant animal class of the period. In the past 540 million years there have been five major events when over 50% of animal species died. There probably were mass extinctions in the Archean and Proterozoic Eons, but before the Phanerozoic there were no animals with hard body parts to leave a significant fossil record.


Scientists have already speculated as to the amount of potential carnage if/when Yellowstone goes. Minimum -- North American life will be wiped out. ALL of it.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Eh, Yellowstone probably wouldn't actually kill off all life in NA.

We would lose a lot of species, and most of the 'heartland', food would be scarce and a lot of people would certainly die. But prevailing winds alone would protect a lot of areas, far from the caldera. And it wouldn't necessarily go full force either. No reason to think it's incapable of producing a range of strength eruptions.

It would be bad. It would be devastating in fact. But probably not the complete end of the United States.

[dbmk]

39. Not what I answered on:)

"I still think we're going to be seeing some wonky-assed weather due to Iceland - especially if it keeps pumping out massive amounts of ash."

Now read my answer again. :)

[izquierdista]

15. It wants bankers

I hear tell that sacrificing some international bankers to the volcano gods can quiet them down. :think:

Now is when Portugal, Iceland, Greece, and Spain get some additional leverage over the banksters that have been trying to capsize their economies.

[Po_d Mainiac]

20. It may not help

But it since it wouldn't do any more harm...Outstanding Idea
:toast:

Gotta question the use of the word "sacrificing" though. That great a benefit to society would hardly be a loss
:hide:

[zenprole]

26. Gucci Roast

"I'm hungry for G-Sax bankers," said the fiery crack - HA HA HA!!! Outstanding! The ghost of Ayn Rand has been feasting on the poor, but now it's payback time!

I'm liking this eruption- after decades of the abuse of nature, paralleled by the utter insanity of global financialization, BOOM. Nature's put at least some of us back in our place. How far down to earth this event brings people is open to question, but I like the odds...especially if the eruption continues for a while.

[Angry Dragon]

31. SOME bankers?? I say all

[ihavenobias]

23. # 14. n/t

[chollybocker]

24. Mother Nature always wins.

Humans needs to adapt to her, and not the reverse.

[Shining Jack]

35. K&R

Thanks for posting this amazing vid.

[MenWatches]

36. Woahhh!!

Thanks for sharing this video.

I really enjoyed watching it.

Keep them posting!

[Turborama]

38. Thanks for the thanks, here's a CNN report from near the volcano itself...

Gary Tuchman's report from near the volcano starts at 2:00: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mu6pizz6BA

Welcome to DU. :hi:

[Turborama]

37. You're most welcome. Here's one from CBS with some footage of lightning inside the cloud

It's very brief but the rest of the footage is awesome, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mu6pizz6BA

A belated welcome to DU. :hi:

[Shining Jack]

41. Thanks a lot for the welcome.

:)

[Turborama]

42. A really good up close one from a helicopter with lightening inside and rocks spewing out...

ITN reporter John Irvine takes a helicopter above the crater of the Icelandic volcano spewing out the ash which has grounded UK flights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6dDesUPkMo