(no subject)

[nekosensei]

* Today, I woke up early so I could go to my sister's house and baby-sit her kids while she got a haircut. Afterwards, I stopped back at home to pick doomsey up, and then the two of us went to a house warming / first birthday party at a friends house. One of the people preparing some of the food used to own a restaurant, and let me tell you, the food was delicious. I ate way too much.

* I'm sure you're well aware of the fact that much of Europe's air travel has been halted because of a volcanic eruption in Iceland. Nobody has any idea of when Eyjafjallajokull will stop erupting or when air travel will start up again. According to this article the eruptions could go on for a long period of time.



"The usual pattern with Icelandic eruptions is for rising and stretching of the surface as magma moves up to shallow depths of a few kilometres, followed by contraction and sinking of the surface as magma exits the shallow magma chamber and erupts at the surface.

However, in this case, Delft University working in collaboration with the University of Iceland has detected magma moving upwards until the onset of the initial eruption on March 20th, but very little deformation since then. This implies that the volume of erupted magma is balanced by new magma coming from deep within the crust, perhaps even the crust mantle boundary, and it is impossible to know how much magma may be stored at these depths. Thus, it remains a very real possibility that the volcano will continue to erupt on-and-off for months to come, as occurred during the last eruptive period in 1821-1823."

According to what I've read, the eruption is too small to affect global climate, but an extended eruption can impact the regional climate-- namely Iceland and parts of Europe. Unfortunately, the historical precedent is that, when Eyjafjallajokull erupts, it's neighbor, Kalta, usually follows. And that could be bad, very very bad. Not only could the resulting ash cloud ground planes in Europe for months, it could also cool the entire planet.

* So...what are we going to do if air travel is shut down for months? Start putting people stranded overseas on boats? Maybe increase train service to southern Europe / North Africa and have people fly in and out from there?

Comments

[samcallahan.livejournal.com]

The Icelandic volcano is very worrisome. If it affects the global climate, even for a year, there could be some very serious food shortages across the world.

Can I store some bulgur wheat and basmati rice in your basement?

[nekosensei.livejournal.com]

Yep...that's one of the things I was worried about....

[bibliofilen.livejournal.com]

From what we're told the only shortages we might notice in the stores if this keeps up is cut flower boquets, exotic fruits and spices from the far east. The EU has an overproduction of food and actually pays farmers to let fields lay fallow so I doubt people will starve.

This might actually benefit farmers in Africa who will be more able to survive on their farming if subsidised European farmers stop dumping our produce in their markets.

[bibliofilen.livejournal.com]

We get 2,5 tons less co2 in the air every day this keeps up. Would also like to add that all of Europe (except Iceland and perhaps Ireland) can be reached by train and car.

Once all those who are stranded get back home the most immediate problem will be that airlines will start going bankrupt and have to lay off a lot of people.