Article

2010-04-15 -Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Geoffrey K. Pullum, "Language Log"

Eyjafjallajoekull: the name says it all, doesn't it? No, of course it doesn't. It looks like a kitten walked across your keyboard. It's the name of the glacier covering the volcano in Iceland that just woke up and remembered that its job description says "Spew hot lava ash across northwestern Europe". I'm at Boston's Logan Airport, where the lights are going out one by one on the board showing international departures to Europe. Airspace is shutting down, flight by flight by flight.

The annotation beside my own flight to London Heathrow this afternoon says "Delayed: see agent" at the moment (there are no agents, of course; they are in hiding); but it will probably be canceled soon. And all the airports in Scotland, where I live, have been closed since the beginning of the day....

I just spoke for a while to a TV reporter covering the developing story in the departure hall here (Boston area viewers: does my hair look OK?), and he asked me if this experience had given me "a new respect for volcanoes". Where do they get these insane questions? I told him I despise volcanoes. Most of all the one under Eyjafjallajoekull.

Posted by Mike 2010-04-15 14:41|| || Front Page|| [11138 views ] Top

#1 Its spewing thick black smoke up to 55,000 feet high. The good news is no injuries reported; the bad news is while it hasn't erupted in over 200 years, it lasted for 2 years when it did. This could potentially have more impact than a terrorist attack :<

Posted by Lumpy Elmoluck5091 2010-04-15 14:55|| 2010-04-15 14:55|| Front Page Top

#2 I understand that the last two times it erupted it caused little ice ages. Global warming may soon be a memory of a lovely dream, if that's so. Little ice ages lead to human population die-offs due to hunger and disease... and therefore a change in the relative power of producers and consumers, ie peasants and lords. Where would that leave China, with all its' financial reserves and so many factories producing things people around the world don't really need as well as so many factories producing things the world does need?

Posted by trailing wife 2010-04-15 15:05|| 2010-04-15 15:05|| Front Page Top

#3 It's an ill wind that blows no good. Book on Cunard now.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2010-04-15 15:13|| 2010-04-15 15:13|| Front Page Top

#4 I've been thinking about the Little Ice Age a lot these days.

I'm not sure China would be in a bad position in that case.

Keep in mind, the late 20th/early 21st century has seen a massive resurgence of feudalism merely because people have the excess energy to play those feudalism games.

The last time this happened...

The Catholic Church had basically eventually transformed itself into a massive international feudal landlord with an ecclesiastical face.... then the period of 1400-1500 happened, the first dip of the little ice age... you had half the population of Iceland _dying_ from the bad harvests and the volcanic poisoning. And the climate crashing in Northern Europe.

And what do you know happened next? The Protestant Revolution.

They pushed until the environment turned nasty and people had the choice of pushing back or dying off.

And then they went ahead and laid the groundwork for a lot of modern civilization in the process.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-04-15 16:08|| 2010-04-15 16:08|| Front Page Top

#5 For the most part, the blue parts of the bottom graph are the Protestant Reformation and the Northern Enlightenment. Everything that keeps us from being like the farmers in _The Magnificent Seven_.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-04-15 16:10|| 2010-04-15 16:10|| Front Page Top

#6 I think there was something called the plague involved as well.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2010-04-15 16:52|| 2010-04-15 16:52|| Front Page Top

#7 There were lots of countries that were hit by the plague without getting any sort of rollback of feudalism or increase in liberty from it.

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-04-15 17:10|| 2010-04-15 17:10|| Front Page Top

#8 Eyjafjallajoekull

When I saw that entry, I thought the Rant had been hit by another spammer. Now that I read the article, I see that the world has been, for all intents and purposes, 'spammed'.

Posted by Procopius2k 2010-04-15 17:19|| 2010-04-15 17:19|| Front Page Top

#9 don't volcanic eruptions of this magnitude happen routinely in Alaska and Kamchatka?

Posted by 746 2010-04-15 18:28|| 2010-04-15 18:28|| Front Page Top

#10 Nowhere compares to the size of Iceland volcanic eruptions.

Over the past 500 years, Iceland's volcanoes have erupted a third of the total global lava output.

Posted by phil_b 2010-04-15 19:22|| 2010-04-15 19:22|| Front Page Top

#11 trailing wife,
I understand that the last two times it erupted it caused little ice ages
It looks like solar activity or lack thereof may have pipped them at the post.
Maybe we'll get a twofer.
Coldest weather in 30 years marks the start of a series of extreme winters

Posted by tipper 2010-04-15 21:29|| 2010-04-15 21:29|| Front Page Top

#12 the last two times it erupted it caused little ice ages

ahhh. The Hillary Effect©

Posted by Frank G 2010-04-15 21:55|| 2010-04-15 21:55|| Front Page Top

#13 That's impossible, tipper. It can't be getting colder - the poley bears are all drowning from Gerbil Worming.™

The Gorebot said so, and he wouldn't lie to us, would he?

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-04-15 22:26|| 2010-04-15 22:26|| Front Page Top

#14 "Although the Laki eruption in 1783 had the largest eruption of lava in the last 500 years, the Eldgjá eruption of 934 AD and other Holocene eruptions were even larger." -wikipedia ; could this later event have driven the scandahoovians from their northern shores down into Europe

Posted by 746 2010-04-15 22:55|| 2010-04-15 22:55|| Front Page Top

#15 The thing people aren't "getting" is that volcanoes like this tend to erupt for 1 to 5 years. This means Europe could be without reliable airline transit for a very long time.

It is a big deal for soldiers needing medical evacuation to Landstuhl from Afghanistan. The last time this very volcano erupted around 1829, it erupted for about 13 months.

What if the air traffic in the UK, BeNeLux, Germany and France are cut off for a year?

Posted by crosspatch 2010-04-15 23:08|| 2010-04-15 23:08|| Front Page Top

#16 Crosspatch, DOD will fly around it. Our soldiers will be cared for.

Posted by 49 Pan 2010-04-15 23:22|| 2010-04-15 23:22|| Front Page Top

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