Anyone was paying attention to the news in 2010 will recall the Icelandic volcano eruption that caused air travel in Europe to come to a literal standstill. 

Newscasts and newspapers around the globe lead with the enormous story that had tremendous economic, geologic and meteorological fallouts. 

Plus it was juicy piece of news that had incredible pictures.   

I sure won’t soon forget the images of people marooned at airports or those dramatic shots of the huge ash cloud.  And it’s always fun to watch non-native Icelanders try to pronounce the volcano’s lengthy name—Eyjafjallajökull.  Here’s a video with a crash course in Icelandic 101.

But a recent study will soon be raising some eyebrows that Eyjafjallajökull might be just getting started. 

According to a group of researchers from the UK and US, they’ve tracked down past eruptions fromIceland’s volcanoes by looking at peat and lake sediments around northern Europe.

What did they find?  Icelandic volcano ash clouds drifting across Europe isn’t anything new.  But, in the past 1,500 years the events seem to happen more frequently. 

It’s important to note that the researchers are not positive if the increase in volcanic activity is a result of more eruptions or just an anomaly in the way the geologic record appears in Europe.

Here’s a link to the article published in Geology so you can look it over at your leisure.  It’s an interesting finding, but hopefully one that doesn’t turn out to be true, especially if you’ve got a European vacation scheduled in the next few years!

Posted under Environment, Geology, International Weather, Natural Disasters, Uncategorized, Weather History, World Weather

The big natural news in the world right now besides the tragic Chinese earthquake is the big cloud of ash spewing from an Icelandic volcano named Eyjafjallajökull (a name not made for TV). The cloud of ash has grounded almost all air traffic in the UK and much of northern Europe. The volcanic ash can cause jet engines to fail. It is not known for sure when the ash will clear up enough to allow safe flying. You have probably seen many pictures of volcano online already. My favorite picture thus far was taken by the NASA satellite Terra. It is a true color image from space and clearly shows the long plume of ash.

Besides disrupting air travel, ash from volcanoes blocks a little bit of the sunshine and can cool down the earth. The last volcano to cool down the earth a significant degree was Mount Pinatubo. The current eruption of Eyjafjallajökull is not yet remotely close to the power and ejecta seen from Pinatubo, but there might be enough ash to cool the earth by a tiny fraction of a degree. So if you are a person who is absolutely mortified by the possibility of anthropogenic global warming, you can rest a tiny bit easier due to Eyjafjallajökull (go ahead, try to pronounce it).

One other benefit of volcanic eruptions is the development of colorful sunsets and sunrises. If the ash circles the northern Hemisphere then we might see some deep orange or red sunsets over the next couple of weeks. If you happen to take any pictures, be sure to email them to StormTrak9 so we can take a look and maybe show them on TV.

Have a fine weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Environment