Eyjafjallajökull

I think everyone who isn't living in a cave knows about this now - how one medium sized volcano in Iceland can take Europe's travel options back 100 years. This pesting volcano (excuse the language) has affected me personally, I was scheduled to fly on one of the first flights that got cancelled and now my 2 weeks off at home are very much in danger of evaporating.

There are a few reasons why this volcano is affecting travel so much more than others in the past.

1. For reasons I don't fully understand, but are related to ice and snow, the ash plume is getting propagated into the higher atmosphere - the place modern aeroplanes hang around - with stunning violence. The ash also seems to be extremely fine and lightweight which means it could remain airborne for weeks or months.
2. There is a jetstream - a high speed current of wind - located roughly over the volcano which snakes it's way towards the North sea before dying out, and there is little movement over Europe itself. Think of a strong river pouring in to a rather stagnant estuary.
3. The affects of ash are not very well documented other than the fact that they ruin gas turbine engines. As no one really knows what intensity is considered a cut off between 'safe' and 'unsafe', and there is very little data available about the actual intensity of the ash floating over Europe.

Through reading forums and news comments a lot of people are mentioning that volcanos erupt all the time in Italy, Japan, Indonesia, and aviation barely takes any notice. This is because either the volcano isn't powerful enough to propel it's ash into the atmosphere, the ash is thick enough to fall to the ground in a fairly limited radius and there are no strong winds overhead to move the ash quickly.

Until one of the three points above is removed from the equation I doubt conditions will change much in Europe - infact as the air in the "estuary" area slowly moves, and ash continues to be fed in, the volume of closed airspace will increase as the ash propagates slowly... As I doubt there will be any breakthroughs in ash knowledge in the next few days we can only hope that the wind conditions change and/or the eruption becomes less intense... But the high pressure is forecast to last well into the week.

S.