Barring the locals of Iceland, the name is a giant tongue twister for most others. Yet millions across the globe spoke of little else but Eyjafjallajökull during the past month. The Icelandic volcano, which was rumbling with unusual intensity since December, 2009, and triggered as many as 3000 ‘mild’ quakes in early March, finally erupted on 20 March, 2010. At first, it belched out lava, reddening the horizon and forcing a couple of hundred farming families living in the adjacent Fljótshlíð, Eyjafjöll, and Landeyjar to flee. Europe savoured some spectacular sunsets, but rest of the world remained unaffected.

But then in mid-April Eyjafjallajökull began to shoot out mammoth fountains of ash, recycled ocean floor (Iceland springs from an ocean ridge amidst the Atlantic..) and grit into atmosphere, dotting the European skies with dense patches of ash cloud. The Planet was now in a turmoil over the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. It still is. The Icelandic Meteorological Office claims that the volcanic eruptions in the glaciers remain ‘dynamic’. Now, what does this imply? To what extent can volcanoes like this one affect our lives? What else can happen if Eyjafjallajökull refuses to go back to sleep? After all, its last ‘awakening’ almost 200 years ago was hardly shortlived. It had continued to spew from 1821 to 1823.

(An audio recording of how to pronounce Eyjafjallajokull: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Eyjafjallaj%C3%B6kull.ogg "AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl-uh")

Yes, we do need to know a bit more about the mood swings of volcanoes. Gobar Times answers some basic questions like these...

  Exploring the Vulcan’s forge  

Vulcan, by the way, was the god of fire and smithery in ancient Roman religion. When volcanoes exploded, in ancient Rome people believed that the fire and ash came out of Vulcan’s divine furnace or forge. But that was a myth and here are some facts…

  How did the Eyjafjallajökull fumes set the world aflame?  
It was not the most powerful of explosions. In fact, it was one of the milder kinds. But what made its spewing so disruptive was its location directly under the Jet streams. Jet streams are fast flowing air currents found in the atmospheres of some planets. The major jet streams on Earth are westerly winds (flowing west to east). Their critical relevance is in air travel, as flight time can be dramatically affected by either flying with the flow or against it. The ash plumes of Eyjafjallajökull had the explosive power to inject ash directly into the Jet Stream. This was then carried directly over Northern Europe into some of the busiest airspaces in the world.

Result?

• All air travel in this part of the world came to a grinding halt. Travellers were stranded midway;
• Essential commodities like food could not be flown to the markets;
• Machinery parts could not reach factories.
  In other words, European economy was paralysed. This, of course, had ripple effects across the globe.
  From Kenya to Brazil. From Greece to the US, the fiery Eyjafjallajökulls had burnt huge holes
  in exchequers everywhere. Losses ran into many billions of dollars.

  Why are volcano plumes  dangerous?   

Laki, a volcano in Iceland, much more volatile than Eyjafjallajökull, erupted in 1783, sending gigantic amounts of lava, ash and poisonous gases into the air for eight months. The blast killed half of Iceland‘s livestock and led to a famine that killed onequarter of its population.

It also cast a deep haze over Europe, cooled temperatures globally and altered monsoon flows, which in turn triggered long spells of droughts in Egypt and India. So exploding volcanoes do leave a lasting impact on the environment and on health—of human beings, animals and other living species.

This is how it happens. The molten rock, or magma, that lies beneath a volcano contains gases that are released to the surface when it erupts. These gases range from relatively harmless low-temperature steam to thick acidic fumes.

Now what do these gases contain? Well, it can vary from one volcano to the other. Mostly it is water vapor, along with carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Other gases include hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen chloride, and hydrogen fluoride. Traces of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and volatile metal chlorides have also been found in volcanic emissions.

Huge amounts of volcanic gas, aerosol droplets, and ash are injected into the stratosphere during an explosion. Some gases, such as carbon dioxide, are greenhouse gases that intensify global warming, while others, like sulfur dioxide, can cause global cooling, ozone destruction, and polluted air known as volcanic smog or “vog”. Prolonged exposure to the vog triggers all kinds of health problems—from minor ailments like fatigue and allergies to serious damages on the eyes and fatal respiratory
blockages

That is not all. Fume clouds also contain water droplets in which acid gases have dissolved. Most of these eventually turn into acid rain, which can corrode and destroy any metal it falls on – telecommunication lines, farm equipment, water pipelines.

Perturbed? Well, there’s more. Hydrogen fluoride emitted in a blast attaches itself to ash particles. When it falls to earth it contaminates grass and vegetation, causing deadly fluorosis to cattle and humans who consume these

  Can Eyjafjallajokull put Climate Change on a fast track?   

Sulfur dioxide, a volcanic gas, reacts in the atmosphere to form sulfate aerosols, which are tiny particles suspended in the air. These aerosols can scatter the incoming rays of sunlight, changing the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface. Result? Dramatic changes in global temperatures. Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia, erupted in April 1815 and caused what was called “the year without a summer”, with snow falling across the US in July in 1816.

But Eyjafjallajökull is unlikely to create such drama, say experts. Its spurts were not strong enough to send material up into the stratosphere, an upper layer of the Earth’s atmosphere where particles hang around for much longer and so can have a longer effect. It ejected less than one per cent of a megaton (to Pinatubo’s 20 megaton) of debris and it all stayed in the troposphere, the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere.

The only danger it poses is that its persistent spewing might melt glaciers that now cap the nearby Katla volcano. Katla, scientists fear, may then blow its top and pump enough ash into the atmosphere to lower temperatures worldwide.

  Can we count our blessings, maybe?  

Frustrated travellers, desperate aviation companies, markets on a tailspin. The Eyjafjallajökull episode has a tired and spent global community as its aftermath. And who knows what the future holds? But let me end with a piece of good news. According to the Environmental Transport Association, the mass grounding of international flights has prevented the emission of billions of tonnes of carbon di oxide. So the eruption may have released the noxious gas, but the amount is far far less than what it has saved!

In other words, the impact of a fire-spitting volcano has proved to be less catastrophic than normal, everyday human activities.

Quite an explosive revelation isn’t it?