Bardarbunga erupting sulphur dioxide today
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The whole scenario over there is inching along maddeningly inconclusive. Will she stop? Will she continuing inching for months or years even? Will she blow? Will she hook up with Askja and will the two of them stage a world changing event? Or will the whole ring of volcanoes keep jiggling and stewing relatively harmlessly on and on?
I've been following a blogger named Rei who has been posting moment by moment updates as things develop. There are lots of great pictures and stories as well as some balanced speculation with educated expert underpinnings.
http://bit.ly/1qxAG16
Rei posts pictures of Ontakesan eruption, also interview about the Gas in Iceland
Fire and Ice -- Bardarbunga
She's still extending her River of Lava along the trail of a river of water, and here, there is part of glacial ice and snow that is now seasonally blanketing the height of Iceland. Here are more details about the SO2 gases circling the Arctic and yes, in northern Alaska and Canada as well as the effects of the Lava River on its sister Water River: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/1...e-On-The-River
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Bardarbunga still smoking and spewing, could go on for months
Red Sunrise over Reikjavik, thanks to Bardarbunga. People are gettng all kinds of symptoms, many are wondering, is it the Mist, or is it a cold, or is it all in my head. Lovely pictures in this blog, Iceland is such a beautiful country.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/1...Fox-Named-Gosi
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Volcanic eruptions and Northern Lights, Iceland
Iceland dealing with some serious Bardarbunga pollution and a lava tornado
The lava tornado:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CqKgzI9ll4
TUE NOV 11, 2014 AT 12:45 PM PST
Bárđarbunga: Asphyxiating Policemen, Acid Snow, Fields of Dead Mice and Wow What's That?!
by Rei, paraphrased by me Gazhekwe. Link to original article at bottom of post.
The lava keeps flowing
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The caldera keeps subsiding and the pollution keeps building. No one can go near the eruption now without signing all kinds of releases and purchasing special insurance. This happened after two gas masked policemen nearly passed out from asphyxiation near the site.
Now back to Rei:
The [lava] field now spreads over 70 square kilometers and
is not slowing down, neither in outflow nor in caldera subsidence [[measured from a volumetric standpoint at least). The overall subsidence in the caldera is 1,1 to 1,2 cubic kilometers and up to 44 meters deep. The geothermal ice cauldrons on the rim had sunk at last report 5 to 8 meters in depth in 11 days.
Really, though, the story here continues to be the pollution.
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[[Credit: Jarđvísindastofnun)
The snow falling near the eruption site may be beautiful, but it's not ordinary. pH readings at the site show that the snow is in places as acidic as cola, with a pH as low as 3,2. This is particularly concerning, as unlike with acid rain, acid snow accumulates; the acid will then quickly move into riparian ecosystems all at once in a short period of time during the spring thaw. Acidity of the snow further away from the eruption site has not been studied.
"Wait, you measured how much pollution in Húsavík?" Early reports claimed that Húsavík hit 8.400 µg/mł. But relax, everyone! They misread the meter, it "only" got up to 4.800. Whew, right? Children in elementary school turned out to be the "early" warning system for some, as a principal called in to check what the pollution levels were after the kids started complaining of headaches.
Place after place keeps hitting the thousands - Vík, Vestmannaeyjar, and on and on. The solution is always the same... stay inside, close windows, shut off air circulation, etc. The civil protective services says that pollution levels are only 10% indoors what they are outdoors [[but warns against the people who've foolishly been buying simple dust masks to try to protect themselves).
Concerning the civil protective services, ScienceWeb, from the University of Iceland, questions at least one aspect of their gas safety advice [[turning the heat up), saying that the pressure would equalize in seconds. They don't address however how long it would take for a building to actually heat up, treating the problem as if the building heats instantly; it actually can take quite a while. That said, I do too question how much effect it would have.
But, regardless, the civil proctective service's advice and the network of [[sometimes offline) net-connected meters and [[sometimes erroneous) hand meters is all we've got.
The president of the Asthma and Allergy Association gave an interview about the eruption. "This is basically just horrible, not least because you don't know how long it's going to go on and how long people are going to have to struggle with this." She noted several things I noted myself, including how people don't go to the doctor when they know the cause, they just try to deal with it, and how frustrating it can be when you don't know whether a symptom is random or because of the pollution - but how sometimes it's obvious. She mentions going out on a jog the previous sunday and quickly began to have respiratory trouble and felt sick.
Probably one of the most creepy signs, something that The Grapevine thinks would make for a good plot element in a M. Night Shyamalan movie, farmers all around Höfn [[where the worst pollution near populated areas has been measured) have been finding huge numbers of dead field mice. They're out in the open, as if they died relatively quickly while out foraging, and most commonly seen in low points where pollution would accumulate. The Nature Office confirms the issue and believes the symptoms they've seen indicate poisoning, either by ingestion or breathing, but that it's too late for them to conduct autopsies to determine more precisely than that.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/1...ow-What-s-That
