Iceland

The recent eruptions in Iceland could upset both weather and flying patterns around the world.

As I look out my living room window over the sea, which is completely shrouded in something that looks like sea mist, I can’t help but wonder at the lack of people on the beach on a pleasantly warm, fine April night.

Is it something to do with volcanic fallout?

The first eruptive stage of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, in Iceland, occurred just before midnight, local time, on 20 March, 2010, according to Iceland’s Institute of Earth Sciences.

Then, at around 0700 on 22 March, an explosion launched eruption columns almost 2.5 miles (4km) up in the air. Lava flowed down the volcano’s flanks until 12 April, when there was a short pause.

A new explosive, eruptive stage followed on 14 April. Reports say that Tuesday’s eruption came from a different vent in Eyjafjallajökull, beneath a 650-ft (200m) thick block of ice, unleashing a torrent of glacial meltwater.

Times Online reports there are fears that Eyjafjallajökull could set off the nearby Katla volcano, a far more violent beast capable of inflicting immense damage.

The precedents are not good. In the past 1,000 years, Eyjafjallajökull has erupted three times, in AD920, 1612 and 1821, and each time the Katla volcano blew up soon afterwards.

And because Katla lies under a glacier, it sets off colossal floods as the ice rapidly melts.

Worse still, Katla can shoot up enormous plumes of ash, gas and acid high into the atmosphere, blocking out the Sun’s energy and creating a deep chill.

Historical Eruptions

There have been 21 eruptions in Iceland since 1963. Three major eruptions of Eyjafjallajökullare, however, are known to have occurred in 920, 1612 and 1821-1823.

Referring to the latter in the Daily Telegraph on 15 April, Professor Bill McGuire, of the Aon Benfield Hazard Research Centre at University College London, said “the previous eruption, in December 1821, lasted until January 1823.”

He added that air travel could be curtailed repeatedly if the current eruption lasted the same amount of time.

The most notable previous example of Icelandic volcanic activity causing problems for Britain was in 1783, when an eruption at Laki sent a huge toxic cloud of sulphur across Western Europe, killing an estimated 23,000 Britons.

In Great Britain, the summer of 1783 was known as the “sand-summer” due to ash fallout. The gases were carried by the convective eruption column to altitudes of about 10 miles (15km).

Gilbert White of Selborne noted that “from June 23 to July 20 inclusive” that a “rust- coloured ferruginous light on the ground, and floors of rooms; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at rising and setting.”

The effects were long-reaching, and may have contributed to the French revolution; precipitous weather conditions may also have caused famine as far away as Egypt and Japan.

If there is anything good coming out of this, it is the way that individuals - and travel organisations - are working together to help those people who are stranded.

There are exceptions, though. One would be a Swiss hotel which turned one journalist colleague out unless she was prepared to pay four times the cost of her room before the volcanic activity became serious.