This can quickly cool, solidify and destroy an engine, rendering it completely inoperational, and leaving the aircraft without power. When hot volcanic ash enters a jet engine, it heats up, resulting in ash melting and sticking together as clumps of molten material. However, the most vulnerable part of a plane flying through a cloud of volcanic ash is its engines. This means it can destroy the outer surface of the aircraft's fuselage, which can be especially bad news for the wings.Īnother vulnerable part of the aircraft is the windshield, which can quickly become obscured or even shattered by airborne ash. This was due to the vast amounts of ash from the eruption of the volcano thrown high into the air - a severe hazard for aircraft engines.īecause volcanic ash is made up of tiny particles of rock, it has an intensely abrasive effect on aircraft. This incident caused European airspace to come to a standstill with nearly all flights in Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean suspended for almost a week. Accessed May 23, 2011.It's been just over ten years since the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. In 2011, Grímsvötn is the new Eyjafjallajökull. Keeping tabs on the Grímsvötn eruption as the ash spreads towards Europe. Grímsvötn eruption closes Keflavik Airport near Reykjavik (and more images of the eruption). More information on the May 21 eruption of Grímsvötn in Iceland. Subglacial eruption starting at Iceland’s Grímsvötn. Ash from Grímsvötn Volcano visible around Iceland. Caption by Michon Scott and Robert Simmon. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. At its peak, the lightning storm produced 1,000 times as many strikes per hour as Eyjafjallajökull had a year earlier. Volcanic plumes can provoke lightning, and the plume from Grímsvötn produced an intense lightning storm. Some volcanic ash models, however, suggested ash could interfere with flights in the United Kingdom and Ireland beginning on May 24. Grímsvötn’s ash was forecast to travel toward the northeast, the Icelandic Met Office stated, and it was coarser and less likely to remain airborne long enough to reach European airspace. Despite its taller plume, Grímsvötn was not expected to hamper trans-Atlantic air traffic as much as Eyjafjallajökull, at least in the first 24 hours. The initial plume from Grímsvötn was higher than from Eyjafjallajökull, which only reached 8 kilometers (5 miles). Iceland Review Online reported that ash falls prompted the closure of Keflavik, Iceland’s largest airport, and caused some areas turn as dark as night in the middle of the day. This time, the aviation industry was better. Ash from the volcano reduced visibility to about 50 meters (160 feet) in some places. The Grimsvotn volcano in Iceland erupted in May 2011, sending ash into the atmosphere. In the southeast, ash has colored the snow surface dark brown. (MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured another image of the volcano about 8 hours earlier.)Ībove Grímsvötn’s summit, volcanic ash forms a circular brown plume that towers above the surrounding clouds. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image at 13:00 UTC (1:00 p.m. Overnight, the plume height dropped to 15 kilometers (9 miles), but occasionally rose to its initial altitude. The volcano sent a plume of ash and steam about 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the atmosphere, the Icelandic Met Office reported. On 15 January 2022, Hunga Volcano in Tonga produced the most violent eruption in the modern satellite era, sending a water-rich plume at least 58 km high. local time) on May 21, 2011, Grímsvötn began to erupt. At approximately 17:30 Universal Time (5:30 p.m. One year after Eyjafjallajökull rumbled to life, another Iceland volcano began spewing ash and steam.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |