Originally published at: Live stream of the volcanic eruption at Grindavik - Boing Boing
…
8 Likes
10 Likes
That’s a rather disturbing quote, given Iceland’s previous volcanic worst case scenario.
9 Likes
Well - that was terrifying. I’m amazed that I hadn’t heard of the Laki disaster before today. Seems like it deserves to be as well known as the Krakatoa explosion.
7 Likes
This led to a famine which then killed approximately a quarter of the island’s human population.
The Laki eruption and its aftermath caused a drop in global temperatures, as 120 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide was spewed into the Northern Hemisphere. This caused crop failures in Europe and may have caused droughts in North Africa and India.
see! i knew we didn’t have to worry about global warming. /s
6 Likes
Some of the reporting has been not good quality. Youtube has been particularly dire. “Looking at” here means “may happen” not “will happen”. Neither Grindavík nor the geothermal plant have been overrun with lava nor is it inevitable that they will be. This seems to be a good news source.
11 Likes
The techbros want to fend off global warming by replicating the effect of these natural sulfate aerosols by injecting sulfur into the stratosphere.
3 Likes
The good news is that the eruption is to the east of Route 43 which connects Grindavík to the main Reykjanesbraut between Keflavík and Reykjavík which means it is on the other side of a ridge from Svartsengi power station and Grindavík itself. This means the lava should flow SE towards the coast.
Provided the fissure doesn’t rupture elsewhere this might not cause any serious damage, although Route 427 along the South Coast might get cut if the lava reaches the sea. It now also seems unlikely that there will be a submarine eruption which would have been a much worse case for the people of Grindavík who would be faced with a situation like the inhabitants of Heimaey in 1973 who found a volcano grow up on outskirts of their town.
There’s little chance of any disruption to flights, but there might be some air pollution in the SW of Iceland for the next few days - although strong winds are forecast.
The only bad news is that the people of the town won’t be at home for Christmas. Mind you, some idiot foreign tourists are bound to get in trouble thinking nothing bad can happen in the middle of an Icelandic winter when they go out to get the perfect Instagram shot.
2 Likes
yeah, definitely part of my point with those two snippets. you can’t fix things by breaking them. geo-engineering is always going to have a downside.
man i miss the holocene 
3 Likes
On the positive side, at least this volcano has a relatively straightforward name. Back in 2010 about half the time spent on news coverage from that year’s eruption was dedicated to explaining the correct pronunciation of “Eyjafjalljökull.”
4 Likes
Don’t get too confident - this volcano doesn’t have a name yet. The Icelandic authorities will have some of their finest research linguists on standby to produce a 27 letter monster - if only for the LOLs when foreign newsreaders see it appear on their autocues. If they feel really nasty they will give the vents and the lava fields different names.
3 Likes
I think it’s been downhill since the Cambrian Explosion. After all, where can you get a tasty Anomalocaris these days?
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
