back to article Volcanic Eyjafjallajökull dirt-splurt space snap

The ESA has released this pic of the Icelandic volcano plume currently paralyzing air traffic above northern Europe and Britain. The pic was snapped yesterday by the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer instrument aboard the Envisat spacecraft, before the plume had spread to cover the southern UK. Envisat image of the …

COMMENTS

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  1. Mister_C
    Go

    "volcanic gunge stream"

    "Ash cloud" . Pah!

    Kudos to el reg, cutting away the euphamisms. Now can you follow it up by estimating the amount of gunge kicking around our airspace (to the nearest few megajubs will do)

    1. Elmer Phud
      Boffin

      Area

      We'd like it in kiloWales, please.

  2. The First Dave
    IT Angle

    Travel

    As I was driving into work this morning the radio was announcing that one or two flights into Glasgow/Prestwick were going ahead, so I don't think you put much research into this.

    1. Oz
      FAIL

      Re Travel

      The flights allowed were (at the time of writing) only local/internal flights. The article states that flights into and out of England were halted, so El Reg is correct.

      1. The First Dave
        Boffin

        @OZ

        From the BBC:

        "An Air Transat flight to Toronto took off from Glasgow Airport at 0800 BST. "

        From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8624306.stm

    2. GreenOgre
      FAIL

      @ Travel

      El Reg is, as always, perfectly accurate. Last time I was there, Prestwick was in Scotland.

      1. Badbob
        FAIL

        Unfortunately.

        Do you want it? Useless as an Airport and a town.

        Remember those old airports you used to see in films like Airport '79 and such.... that's Prestwick today. Sorry, Glasgow Prestwick International Airport. As close to Glasgow as Beauvais is to Paris, i.e. not very!

  3. hugh
    Thumb Up

    no con trails

    pretty.

  4. Charles E
    Thumb Up

    Headline

    I would like to express my appreciation to the editor that wrote that headline and subhead. That was some goddam brilliant writing.

    Headline writing is an art, and this example is a masterpiece. Its punchiness and general waggishness might even exceed my all-time favorite headline, "Lax Styx Wax Clicks." I would memorize this so I could cite it as a paradigm of headline writing, if I thought I could memorize "Eyjafjallaokull."

    1. Mad Jack
      Thumb Up

      Kudos

      I have to say the standard of headlines is getting pretty high - I mean just yesterday we had "Herd of sheep, off tits on drugs, savagely Tased" - how fantastic is that FFS?

  5. Graham Dresch
    Coat

    Now I need a new password

    Curse you all for publicising this volcano, i thought "Eyjafjallaokull" was such a good password

    1. Noons
      Joke

      luser

      FFS, how many times do people need to be told not to use the name of their pet volcano as a password?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Upside

      According to the new rules of Scrabble I've just scored four hundred points.

  6. lawndart

    Title word check - Pass

    How is Eyeful-o-yoghurt a tongue twister?

  7. FreeTard
    Thumb Up

    The last time it erupted

    it lasted for TWO years... 1821 to 1823.

    Holiday's at home for a while eh lads?

    1. nagyeger

      Re: two years

      Want to bet that share price in the ferries and tunnel go up? If so see your friendly stockbroker.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Two years

      Relax. Whilst there were a number of short periods when it erupted violently producing a lot of ash; most of the time Eyjafjallajökull just grumbled away.

      On a media hype scale, this might be huge; but the eruption is much smaller than Mount St. Helens. It's just better placed for maximum buggeration in the current weather patterns.

    3. Badbob
      Thumb Up

      At last...

      I can see my "Groupe Eurotunnel SA" shares taking an upward trajectory. Woohoo! Shame about my British Airways shres though. ;-(

  8. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart

    Swine Air

    Michael O'Dreary must be having a money-gasam, all those flights canncelled and not a penny to pay back due to an "Act of God".

    1. Steve X

      payback

      He won't have to pay compensation, but he'll still have to refund or transfer people with tickets. I'm sure he'll be able to cram a few more folks into the overhead bins.

  9. ian 22
    Joke

    Is Iceland a plague upon the planet?

    The famine of 1782 was caused by Iceland.

    The latest bank crash was caused by Iceland.

    And now airlines left and right will go titsup, not to mention Airbus, because of Iceland.

    God save us from the wrath of the Northmen!

    1. Slartybardfast
      Happy

      Is Iceland a plague apon the planet?

      If you've ever tried any of their own brand frozen products then yes..

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    @freetard

    Do you know any good hotels in Brighton that I can buy stock in???

    Black helicopter, because I am sure it comes with super-secret stealthy alien technology dust-resistant engines......

  11. Stuart Halliday
    Thumb Up

    See the goodness

    So the people of London are getting a decent night sleep at last due to their airports being shut?

    If this volcano continues, we could see our Scottish airports getting a massive increase of business and therefore helping the local economy?

    Well until the wind changes... ;-)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No such luck

      No reduction in aircraft noise around here, unfortunately. The sky is still full of the usual annoying low-flying helicopters and other light aircraft doing aerobatics, etc.

      I keep hoping their engines will seize up, but no luck so far. Infernal combustion jobs, presumably. Must be immune to ash.

  12. Colonel Panic

    Yo Iceland, listen up

    We said send CASH

  13. b166er
    Thumb Up

    Heads

    Caledonian Thistle trounced Celtic, leading to the heading:

    Super Cally go Ballistic, Celtic are Atrocious.

    1. Mike Flugennock
      Pint

      Practically Perfect in Every Way

      "Super Cally go Ballistic, Celtic are Atrocious."

      Bra-VO.

      You, my man, are a headline GOD.

  14. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Badbob
      Pirate

      Iceland = Undefined?

      I was under the impression that Iceland straddles both Europe and North America, hence the ridiculous amounts of seismic and volcanic activity to be found there.

      Unless you mean Iceland, the purveyor of piss-poor frozen foods? If my mum went to Iceland, I'd get her labotomised.

  15. Ropewash
    Black Helicopters

    Al Gore

    Will he require Iceland to cough up some dough for re-distribution to countries that do not have active volcanoes?

    Do they get a discount for the grounding of aircraft?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    Ashcloud Modelling

    Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud computer modelling and prediction (Iceland Meteorological Institute website ) with model images.

    http://met.no/Nyheter/

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Headmaster

    Ash cloud Modellers...

    ...are Norwegian Meteorological Institute, not Icelandic MI. It was right there in Google Translator Extension and you think I could see it? Damn ash cloud.

  18. Badbob
    Grenade

    Damn you Ísland!

    OK, so Iceland couldn't muster a naval force during the cod wars to defeat the mighty Royal Navy, so they thought, lets just wait a couple of years then nick all their money and drop several thousand tonnes of ash on them. They won't expect that.

    I always wondered why a country so near, so unthreatening and with so much in common was a sort of enemy. Now I know why! I would suggest dropping a nuke on them, but the fallout would apparently just blow back to us.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The beggars

      What's worse, they deliberately named the volcano so we couldn't pronounce it.

      Linguistic warfare, that is!

    2. Atli
      Pirate

      @Badbob

      Yea, we couldn't "muster" a naval force to match an "enemy" who's navy represents ~13% of the entire Icelandic population, backed by a military force that represents ~60% of the population... Surprising, ain't it? (Which makes the fact that we essentially "won" the "wars" that more impressive. - Brute force isn't always the answer :P)

      And yes, we all came together and decided to purposefully collapsed our economy and *cause* a volcanic eruption, to do minor damage to the UK economy and delay a few airplanes. - (... just for the lulz xD)

      /facepalm

  19. JimC
    Black Helicopters

    Just in time deliveries...

    Better not mention which supplier, but we had a breakdown on a piece of kit last night. The Engineer gloomily said: "I hope they haven't sent *all* the spares to the European warehouse or we're stuffed"

    (yep, no black helicopter for an emergency delivery)

  20. Rattus Rattus
    Thumb Up

    "Dirt-splurt"

    Hahahahahahaha... <wipes away tear>

    Lewis, please don't ever leave The Register.

  21. Ian Ferguson
    Megaphone

    I'm stuck!

    I'm stuck in sunny Taiwan (with coral reefs, beautiful beaches, monkeys, etc) instead of getting back to Southampton for work tomorrow.

    I'm not complaining, I just like to share :)

    I don't suppose El Reg wants a Taipei based hack?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    what a dirtbag

    Getting my coat...

  23. Steve B

    I would have thought Sportacus

    should have fixed this by now!

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