Icelandic Volcano Continued

Measuring the particulates in the atmosphere from the Icelandic Volcano was critical in determining when and for how long air traffic was to be grounded.  A good friend of mine who is a pilot was flying one of the last flights out of Europe before they grounded air travel.

Astronomer Snaevarr Gudmundsson took this photo along with hundreds of others as the eruption was occuring.

He shared his incredible experience with Universe Today: 

“I stayed near the volcano from about 16:00 hours to 22:00 hours on Saturday and watched its impressive eruption,” Gudmundsson said in an email to me. “Amazing event, awesome explosions of 1200 C hot magma reaching ice and water. I shot more than 550 images during these hours of continuous enjoyment. Sounds ridiculous but its ever changing appearance was never boring.”

Yet another fantastic lightning image within the ash plume. 

This image is from a ground-based LIDAR (Light detection and ranging) using a 532 nanometer cross polarization NFOV (Narrow field of view) telescope.  The ash cloud is the brighter pocket of red and dark orange which sinks over time.

According to the SIRTA website out of France (research site for atmospheric detection--loose translation), the instrument is "capable of retrieving the optical and microphysical caracteristics of clouds and aerosols particles in the boudary layer and the troposphere (between 0.1 km and 15 km). Two wavelengths are emitted by the laser: 532 nm and 1.064 µm ; the detection system is capable of measuring the signal at 532 nm with the same polarization than the emitted beam."  In other words, instead of using conventional radar, which sends a microwave signal, this uses a laser.

A great simulation from the Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research at the University of Cologne showing the ash plume descending over Europe since last Wednesday.

The Icelandic Volcanic Eruption

Icelandic Volcano Photo.   Courtesy:  Snaevarr Gudmundsson

A large volcanic eruption on iceland from a volcano named "Eyjafjallaajokull" has shutdown airtraffic to an extent not seen since 9/11.  The particulates in the ashcloud have been known to shutdown jet engines.  As a precautionary measure, more than 60,000 flights have been grounded since the eruption.

While the science both volcanic and atmospheric is newsworthy, the pronounciation of the volcano's name is stealing headlines due to its phoenetic complexity and journalists' butchering of it.

NPR's website has a great writeup on how to pronounce it.   Trust me, it won't help too much but its worth a listen.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/04/iceland_volcano_eyjafjallajoku.html

...or this youtube audio clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqXc8i8CvNs

Here is a great satellite animation showing the ash plume.

 

The Norwegian Institute for Air Research shows the computer model ash plume dispersal forecast into Tuesday, April 20th.  You can see why given the aerial coverage of the ash why air traffic was so greatly affected.

 
Yet another snapshot of the ash plume moving across the Norwegian Sea

In 24 hours, the ash cloud moved southeastward into continental Europe.

A great FAQ section of the Icelandic Meteorology Office on volcanoes.

http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/1880

Also, a list of volcanic eruptions in Iceland since 1900

http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/articles/nr/1874

Recent article on the 1918 EL NINO in AMS Bulletin

I usually don't get to issues of the AMS Bulletin until I am knee deep in back issues.  So this morning, I flipped through February's issue and came across an excellent paper on the El Nino of 1918 and its relation to the influenza pandemic and other climate patterns that existed at that time.

Climate teleconnections before 1950 are very difficult to quantify due to the lack of data from that era.  Buoy arrays didn't exist.  Ground based temperature records are not as reliable as you go back to the start of the 20th century.  This paper aims to trace back the record through reanalysis of existing data.

The paper is not long nor is super-technical or filled with equations.


1918 EL NINO PAPER HERE

US Statewide Temperature Ranks

The first 15 days of April have been uncharacteristically warm across the eastern 2/3rds of the US.  Here are the US temperatures compared to average for the first week of April.

 

A quick look at US statewide temperature rank starting in September of 2009

Was this March historically warm?  March of 2007 featured widespread warmth

The average temperatures from December 2009 through February 2010

 Remember the COLD summer of 2009?

Freakonomics Podcast: "Faking It"

As a supplement to the newest Freakonomics book called "Super Freakonomics", the Freakonomics Podcast on the New York Times website features updated elements from both Freakonomics books and their brand of economic theory applied to brand new societal subjects you've experienced but probably not thought much about.

The newest episode titled "Faking It" focuses on faking it in social situations, politically and religiously.

Its worth a listen.

Download from iTunes HERE


Or directly from the Freakonomics site.

Ballpark Orientations

A great graphic courtesy:  www.flipflopflyin.com  showing all Major League Baseball ballpark orientations.  It seems that even the newer ballparks keep the eastward orientation of the batter so that the hitter doesn't face the sun in the early evening.

NEW Video Game Record

If you've ever seen the  movie King of Kong: A Fistfull of Quarters, you will quickly understand why video game records are considered to be--by the ones who strived to break them--hallowed numbers that deserve to be placed on a pedistle with other records in other sports.


We all remember the classic games.  Pac-Man, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Gallaga.  Each one has a place in the minds of the classic gamers from the early 1980s.  Each one has had a record broken in recent years. Yet one game has eluded players for almost 30 years.

Astroids is a simple, shooter game that doesn't have the luster as the popular games mentioned above.  The record which was originally set back in 1982 by Scott Safran at the peak of the first video game boom.  His score of 41,336,440 just fell to John McAllister of Seattle with a score of 41,338,740. 

It took him 58 hours.

The First Baseball Team Photo

I stumbled across this photo of the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club in 1858.

Tim Berners-Lee on an "OPEN DATA" Web

The creator of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee has been pushing the Semantic Web for almost a decade. A web that is based on the data WITHIN documents rather than the documents themselves is how he sees the Internet of the future.

A new element found...more like created in the lab

Element number 117 discovered.  According to this article, it fits inbetween 116 and 118 which have already been discovered.


READ HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE

Look.  I'm not a physicist or chemist (although I took my fair share of high level science courses in college) but how do you discover element 117 AFTER 118?

The new name (unofficial) is:  ununseptium

If I create a new element in a lab, I want to be used as an artifical sweetner.  I can see it now:  Radioactive sweetner for your cup of "Joe" in the morning.  Its so heavy, you can taste the bevy of protons swimming around.