An early post on the volcanic plume currently causing severe disruption to air travel over northern Europe. I’ve collected together some of the links already sent to met social by Keith which has lots of new images and the EUMETSAT front page from David which has some nice animations.
For those who want a journal reference as a jumping off point for thinking about ash plumes and their impact on aviation, you could do worse than the recent review by Pete Webley who was a PhD student in ESSC (click through the Science Direct link). Please add comments and other links below.
Come along to WCD next week for the latest update and to see if I’ve learned how to pronounce the name of the volcano!
Visit the NATS (air traffic control) for the latest information on the status of UK airspace. It’s currently open and it looks like it will stay open today (though part of Scotland may have to close again).
For stats junkies, here is the flight disruption in figures Eurocontrol report that by the end of today (21st), more than 95,000 flights will have been cancelled. On a normal day there are approximately 28,000 flights in European airspace, on 17th and 18th there were only 5,000. Trans-Atlantic flights, of which there are 600 a day, have also been affected, mainly because they had few options of where to land, and they also had to fly a more southerly route to avoid the ash cloud. The situation is steadily improving – around 200 eastbound flights landed in Europe yesterday, up from 73 (out of 300) on the 16th.