Travelore News Update: Flight Fears As Fresh Eruptions Continue Over Iceland

Iceland’s Bardarbunga volcano continues to erupt, maintaining flight alerts.

Iceland’s second-highest peak, Bardarbunga, erupted in a spectacular mountain of lava and has placed flights over the region under question.

According to the NBC, the third eruption to take place this week alone sent 60 metre lava jets into the air from a fissure on the north side of the peak.

Bardarbunga has been thwart with hundreds of tremors throughout August, sparking fears that the volcano could explode.

Iceland had initially enforced a flight ban, during peak travel times, in fear that the eruption would release a plume of ash.

This is not the first time the country has been faced with flight-altering eruptions. In 2010, the smaller Eyjafjoell volcano erupted, sending gusts of ash through the atmosphere which rendered air travel impossible.

Thousands were stranded in what would later be known as the widest airspace shutdown since World War II.

Since Sunday, authorities have lowered the alert level from red to orange. However, flight warnings remain in place.

Authorities are hopeful the situation will stabilise and that Bardabunga does not have the same seismic repercussions as the 2010 Eyjafjoell eruption.

By KarryOn

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Travelore Update: Iceland Lowers Aviation Alert Level From Volcano

Contributed by Jenna Gottleib and Jill Lawless, AP

In an in an image from an Aug. 19, 2014 video, a sign is posted on the road next to Bardarbunga, a subglacial stratovolcano located under Iceland's largest glacier. On Saturday, Aug. 23, 2014, Iceland closed airspace over the Bardarbunga volcano on Saturday after the Meteorological Office said an eruption had begun under the ice of Europe’s largest glacier. The English portion of the sign reads, ""Uncertainty phase due to unrest in Bardarbunga". (AP Photo/Courtesy Channel 2 Iceland)

Iceland lowered its aviation alert level to orange from red Sunday, saying there was no sign of an imminent eruption at the Bardarbunga volcano. And scientists at the Icelandic Meteorological Office said their announcement Saturday that the volcano had experienced a subglacial eruption was wrong.

But the office cautioned in a statement that seismic activity at the volcano, which has been hit by thousands of earthquakes over the past week, was not slowing, and an eruption remained a possibility in coming days.

Two earthquakes measuring over 5 in magnitude - the biggest yet - shook the volcano beneath Iceland's vast Vatnajokull glacier early Sunday. The Met Office recorded earthquakes of 5.3 and 5.1 in the early hours.

Iceland had raised the alert for aviation Saturday to red, the highest level on a five-point scale, warning that an ash-emitting eruption could be imminent.

An orange alert indicates "heightened or escalating unrest with increased potential of eruption."

After the alert was lowered, aviation authorities lifted a no-fly zone that had been imposed for 100 nautical miles by 140 nautical miles (185 kilometers by 260 kilometers) around the volcano.

A 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokul volcano caused a week of international aviation chaos, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled. Aviation officials closed Europe's air space for five days out of fear that volcanic ash could harm jet engines.

Any new eruption would be likely to be less disruptive. European aviation authorities have changed their policy, giving airlines detailed information about the location and density of ash clouds but leaving decisions to airlines and national regulators.

"Even if there were to be a major eruption, it would not necessarily produce a high ash column, so the likelihood of interruption of trans-Atlantic and European air travel remains low," said Open University geoscientist David Rothery.

Britain's National Air Traffic Service said it was monitoring what it called a "dynamic situation" but was expecting normal operations Sunday.

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Lawless contributed from London

Travelore News: Another Volcano In Iceland Threatens To Disrupt Air Flights

 Oh no, another volcano

Airlines have been put on alert after one of Iceland’s biggest volcanoes rumbles to life, threatening a repeat of the 2010 flight-havoc caused by ash clouds from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano resulting in about US$1.7 billion in lost revenue after 100,000 flights were cancelled. Not to be blind sighted and thrown into chaotic disruption this time, European carriers are carefully watching the Bardarbunga volcano after 800 earthquakes in the area raised the risk of an eruption to ‘orange’, the second-highest level. Flights across the North Atlantic, the busiest international travel market, could still be disrupted if ash is spewed from the volcano and wind conditions remain unfavorable, as it can stop turbines by melting and congealing.

Eurocontrol, the region’s air traffic manager, said there is currently no impact on aviation from Bardarbunga, which lies beneath Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest glacier, and last erupted in 1996.

Furthermore, the aviation industry has developed better tools to monitor volcanic clouds since the Eyjafjallajokull eruption, according to a statement from Eurocontrol.

“Europe is more prepared to deal with volcanic ash these days; we have better mechanisms in place than we did in 2010,”

Eurocontrol said.

The Eyjafjallajokull incident stranded 10 million passengers after European officials were forced to close the majority of airspace in the region for 6 days.

From http://karryon.com.au/

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