Scientists fear tremors at the Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) volcano could trigger an even more dangerous eruption at the nearby Katla volcano — creating a worst-case scenario for the airline industry and travelers around the globe.
A Katla eruption would be 10 times stronger and shoot higher and larger plumes of ash into the air than its smaller neighbor, which has already brought European air travel to a standstill for five days and promises severe travel delays for days more.
The two volcanoes are side by side in southern Iceland, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) apart and thought to be connected by a network of magma channels.
You people are extrapolating from a data point of one. Iceland does have a history of volcanic explosions, but the recent eruption may have actually relieved pressure in the magma chamber below Iceland. Or…the pressure might not have been relieved enough.
A Vulcanologist may have some ideas, but there’s a lot of uncertainty as to what will happen next (see the history of Mt St Helens to get an idea of the uncertainty).
Incidentally, this eruption has no connection with global warming, though it might cool the European climate for the short term. How much? I really don’t know.
#18–Skeptic==just like a volcano, every once in a while, you gotta blow some steam. It is true that humor does not come across the webitubes too well and (/joke) could have been used. OTOH–aren’t many entries about GW meant for humor?
Still of interest, given your nom de flame, why so much interest in GW? A while back this blog has 4-5 well supported threads with lots of linked articles and opinions by folks who had done some reading. We have been in a lull stage since before you exhibited a tremor.
It is actually a good case study for anyone with a strong opinion one way or the other to evaluate themselves for how they form opinions. I formed one, reversed it, then became agnostic, now have moved back towards but not all the way to my original opinion(s).
Its good to be flexible without becoming wishy-washy.
Floyd–everything is connected. Causation abounds. Proximity is remote.
#23: Bobbo, You’re right, but the point really is that we have little or no idea what will happen in Iceland. It’s a crapshoot.
Well Floyd–ten minutes have passed, so I say Few things are connected, causation is linear and proximate, and our ignorance makes it all a crapshoot.
I think we are all agreed then!
The links provided just above though to try to make a link to GW. Succeeds or fails depending on how you view it, and we are evaluating in retrospect, not trying to predict, two different things. It surely falls within the general rule that when one thing changes, another one will as well?
I do think GW is sufficiently grounded to explain what has happened even if it is not precise enough to predict what will happen tomorrow. (/sarcasm)
A worst case scenario would be Katla erupts, creating the earth’s mantle between the two volcanos to collapse and cause a 12 miles wide gap in the earth and the earth starts collapsing onto it.
I’d say worst case is that there is a massive Katla eruption like a global jet engine, and the earth pushes off into space, to boldly go where no planet has gone before.
@bac,
Iceland became a Christian country around 1000 AD according to the Sagas – http://tinyurl.com/27c9zvh
I’ve actually been through the exhibit at the Perlan in Reykjavik.
Bobbo, #25 re:”…why so much interest in GW? A while back this blog has 4-5 well supported threads with lots of linked articles and opinions by folks who had done some reading. We have been in a lull stage since before you exhibited a tremor.”
Actually, I’ve been on DU for several years. In January I decided to change my alias from JimR to Skeptic… and posted the change back then, a few times, just in case anyone cared… although why anyone would care is beyond me.
Why so much interest in AGW? … I love science. I love discovery. I read science magazines for pleasure. Climate science has prostituted itself and it annoys me a lot. I’m totally flexible, but I’ll be a skeptic concerning the biased ‘science’ and sordid behavior behind AGW until I have reasons to change my opinion… and my alias.
# 21 Floyd said, “Incidentally, this eruption has no connection with global warming, though it might cool the European climate for the short term.”
Floyd – My how you contradict yourself before you even end the sentence. If this causes any change in the climate it has, then, by definition, affected global climate.
But, that aside. Iceland is totally bankrupt. The twelve people who live there can easily be absorbed into the population of, say, Haiti. I say it’s time to see if we can release all that pent up energy with a few nukes! I think we can teach nature a thing or two…
Just their luck. Damn mountain is too big to fail.
#4 Short wave or even FM with a nice big antenna somewhere. Even am with the right passive antenna.
Nice wall paper but its to small.
I think the Yellowstone hot spot should be the site of a national-scale geothermal energy project. I don’t know if it’s possible to extract enough energy to stop the next supervolcano eruption, but it’s worth a try, plus we could get lots of electricity in the meantime.
#29–Skeptic==very good. Seems to me though you are making a “basic” error, not the same basic error Animby makes, but still a basic error. If we sum up all the common errors made, then we could focus on the uncommon ones? ((I crack myself up!))
Are you confusing/conflating the politics surrounding GW with the science of GW? Science makes headway and gains consensus and then final acceptance while the politics, much less religion, can tarry for years. The politics of cancer and tobacco is mostly settled, but you can still find political and religious shills claiming no connection. Does that make the science subject to skepticism????
Animby–I like your bullseye on the contradiction before the end of the sentence. Sweet. But a volcano erupting for a few years is “weather” and not climate. Too many view their life experience with weather as a basis to opine on climate. A good example of hubris and ignorance although that is almost redundant.
And to Floyd–I apologize. It can seem flippant to teeter-totter back and forth on broad general statements but I only revealed my private process. Make the argument on one side, then the other, compare and contrast, see the right and wrong on both sides===reach for the dialectic. Start over.
I was down in the lower levels of the Earthquake Machine facility here in northern California, and who did I bump into with a Level 1 Pass securely pinned to his smock? Adam Curry.
The best way to confuse people is to rail against that which you wholeheartedly embrace. Or, in this case, control.
Bobbo, Animby… happy Earth Day!
Bobbo, short answer, not rehashing all the details… politics and climate science have become indistinguishable. Where politics usually derives from science, climate science has become a product of politics (sad). Many climates scientists have become deniers of science with arguments as inane as the cancer/tobacco scenario. We get excuses, silence, avoidance, double talk… instead of honesty and real scientific debate. That is why skeptics still abound and why a growing percentage of the public smells a rat, even though they don’t know much of the science. (not talking about all the nut cases and conspirators that come out of the woodwork) There is no debate between valid scientist skeptics and the disciples of AGW. The debate that is “over”… never even started. Of course the amount of CO2 does something to climate, but we will never know by how much, and exactly what we should do about it if anything, until we get all the questions answered in public forums of skeptic scientists and AGW disciple scientists. I’m not confused in the slightest about this Bobbo.
further proof that you can be as “green” as you like and nothing will change cause the Earth is ever changing.
Well said Skeptic, but I am skeptical of anyone who conflates science with the politics of the subject and in this case, the related subjects. I don’t think there would be “any” controversy over the long term predictions (the science) if it weren’t for the drumbeat for immediate action to be taken (the politics). It is poetical how you characterize one “flowing” from the other, but that is meaningless. The science is science and its not made political just because hacks refer to science.
The “science” I am referring to is the peer reviewed/contested/resolved scientific literature on the subject. I’ve never read any of it—tried===it was over my head. “I’ve heard” and take it as probably true that there is a consensus on AGW. Using only conflicting biased political sources to contest this report of a consensus is suspect in my book.
For myself, while this is as important as just about anything else that might occur in 100-200 years if we don’t do anything to stop it, I still find too many other issues more “interesting” and seemingly relevant to myself. There is a tiny steak of LIEbertarianism in me as well, I must admit.
Bobbo#34–glad you re-read my original statement, then your own. We were apparently settling on the same conclusions after all. Yes, a single volcano erupting, even for a long time, is really weather. Even the “year without a summer” in the early 1800s was a weather event, not climate change. It was temporary after all.
Bobbo, It’s not all that hard to understand… lots of big labels for simple processes. The consensus is quite possibly fake. A few brave souls have come forth and said that are many scientists too afraid to speak out for fear of career suicide. Sure, climate scientists do science, but it is terrible science by definition.
Let’s just agree to disagree on this one Bobbo. I find myself agreeing with you 95% of the time, and the other 5%… when I can’t really decipher your posts… I think leads to misinterpretation or just our different flavors of quirky humour becoming dark energy.
When / if the smoke ever clears on this topic, I have no doubt we’ll be on the same side.