[HN Gopher] Volcanic eruption starts in Iceland (Live webcam)
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Volcanic eruption starts in Iceland (Live webcam)
Author : MrDresden
Score : 112 points
Date : 2022-08-03 14:07 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ruv.is)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ruv.is)
| IYasha wrote:
| Hot. And I wanted to move to Iceland not long ago...
| bell-cot wrote:
| GeologyHub ( https://www.youtube.com/c/GeologyHub/videos ) does
| very short (~4 minute) daily videos on volcanic activity, and has
| covered Iceland several of times recently.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Great channel.
| bilsbie wrote:
| How much co2 will this release and can we afford it?
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| True! We should build a huge biodome above Iceland to contain
| the CO2.
| JRKrause wrote:
| If I recall the math, the yearly total eruption of actual magma
| mass is on the same order as the yearly mass of CO2 emitted by
| humans (some like 80billion tons of magma vs 30billion tons of
| CO2). The percent, by mass, of dissolved CO2 in that magma is
| in the single digits.
|
| So to answer to your question: It's a drop in the bucket.
| runarberg wrote:
| There was an eruption in the same location last year, that
| lasted for about 6 months. I think it emitted between 1 and
| 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases. In
| comparison humans in Iceland emitted around 2-10 million
| tonnes (depending on what you include) during the same
| period.
|
| Another fun comparison is that Elon Musk's 50 min flight in
| his private jet last Friday between Brownsville, TX and
| Austin, TX emitted around as much as last years eruption did
| in a day.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Are you sure? Unless I'm messing it up, 1.5m/180=8333kgs.
| Flying would struggle to make that in an hour wouldn't it?
| runarberg wrote:
| You are right. I'm off by a factor of 1000!
|
| I used this article (https://kjarninn.is/skodun/eldgos-
| og-co2/ [Icelandic]) which states that the eruption
| emitted between 4,000 and 7,000 tonnes of CO2 a day. And
| then I used the @ElonJet twitter bot
| (https://twitter.com/ElonJet/status/1553102092327321601)
| to get the 4 tonnes.
|
| Elon's 12 hour flight back from Greece a couple of
| weekends ago emitted 65 tonnes of CO2. That is 1/100 of
| what the volcano emitted over 24 hours. So he has to fly
| 50 hours to emit the same amount of CO2 as the volcano
| does in an hour. I wouldn't be surprised if there are 50
| CEOs flying their private jets at this very moment.
|
| ---
|
| The Icelandic tendency to write out the word thousand
| plus all the weirdness of the tonne weight unit (as
| opposed to Mega-grams and Giga-grams) caused my
| confusion.
| Kutta wrote:
| It will release approximately no CO2.
| Maursault wrote:
| Iceland is a pioneer in clean vulcanism.
| julienchastang wrote:
| You are correct. The Icelandic volcano will release CO2.
| Volcanoes play a vital role in the carbon balance in the
| Earth's atmosphere. If it were not for volcanoes releasing CO2,
| Earth would be a lifeless snowball planet with little or no
| greenhouse gases containing the heat. Moreover, that CO2 will
| be reabsorbed into the crust of the earth through the process
| of weathering, CO2 + H2O - H2CO3, CaCO3 + H2CO3 - Ca2+ +
| 2HCO3-. This will also happen for all the CO2 that human
| activity is belching into the atmosphere. The problem is this
| will take geologic time for the problem to correct itself.
| vkou wrote:
| A year's worth of volcanism emits some amount of CO2, and an
| ~equivalent amount is consumed and stockpiled by other natural
| processes. It's why in the long-term of hundreds of thousands
| of years, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are more or less
| stable.
|
| Unfortunately, when humans started emitting millions of years
| of CO2 stockpiles, the natural processes of the carbon cycle
| that take CO2 out of the atmosphere haven't magically scaled up
| to compensate.
|
| Volcanism slowly drips water into a bucket that has a small
| hole in the bottom. Over the course of hundreds of thousands of
| years, the water level in the bucket stays more or less the
| same. Humans come along, and start filling the bucket with a
| firehose, and then start questioning if they, or the volcano
| are the reason the bucket overflowed.
|
| This is basic stuff that's covered in any high-school-level
| textbook on the subject.
| rogo007 wrote:
| "There is no question that very large volcanic eruptions can
| inject significant amounts of carbon dioxide into the
| atmosphere. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens vented
| approximately 10 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere in
| only 9 hours"
| runarberg wrote:
| There was a famous case of one volcano in Iceland that stranded
| a bunch of airplanes resulting in net greenhouse savings. That
| is the amount of greenhouse gas that the volcano emitted was
| less then what the airplanes would have otherwise emitted if
| the volcano wouldn't have stranded them.
|
| That was a fairly small eruption though and didn't emit a lot
| of greenhouse gas. There was another eruption last year in the
| same place as this one, and it was even smaller. This one seems
| to be larger then last years eruption, but I would be surprised
| if this one actually emitted more greenhouse gas over the next
| year then e.g. Iceland's aluminum industry.
|
| So to answer your question if we can afford it. The answer is
| yes. We are experiencing about average number of volcanoes
| globally, and the greenhouse gas emissions of volcanoes has
| remained steady for the last few millions years, and we are not
| seeing any increase. In comparison human greenhouse gas
| emissions are rising dramatically, we should probably focus our
| efforts there.
|
| EDIT: Here is a short article (in Icelandic) about the
| greenhouse gas emissions of last year's eruption:
| https://kjarninn.is/skodun/eldgos-og-co2/
| julienchastang wrote:
| Dammit! I was just there at the end of June.
| gojomo wrote:
| As soon as my 2nd vax dose was 14d behind-me in May 2021, I went
| to Iceland - which had just recently reopened to vaxed travelers
| - to see the Fagradalsfjall eruption. It was just a ~50m drive
| from Reykjavik, plus a ~1h20m hike.
|
| It was spectacular - launching large lava plumes on a roughly
| 8-minute, reliable cycle, and feeding ever-growing lava fields
| out around both sides of one hilltop that was ideal for watching
| the volcano. (The rising lava fields made that perch unreachable
| just a few weeks later.)
|
| If you've ever wanted to see an eruption up-close, with actual
| hot flowing lava, get there while it's going/growing. (Of course,
| this could stop tomorrow or continue for months.)
|
| A good writeup about that time of volcano-tourism:
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/23/chasing-the-la...
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I did the same on. I got a chance to get reasonably close on
| May 29, 2021. Here's the coolest selfie I'll ever take.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/pCA1gSr.jpg
|
| Two days later the hill on which I took that selfie was cut off
| from a new lava flow.
| gojomo wrote:
| That hill was amazing! Almost like box seats over the show,
| close in, but high above places where dangerous gasses most
| likely to collect, and offering 360deg views of surrounding
| valleys slowly filling with lava.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Iceland continuing to thank its lucky stars (or elves or whatever
| they believe in) for these absolutely perfect tourist
| attractions. I mean, a crazy but not too crazy eruption,
| continuous flow of lava just a stones throw from Reykjavik? And
| now it's happening again? The Earth's gift that keeps on giving.
|
| Makes me wonder, what if the mayor or head of tourism or
| something found a way to 'poke' the mantle and make the lava
| start flowing again after the last one dried up earlier. haha
| gojomo wrote:
| I whimsically considered the same! Iceland, using its secret
| volcano-control technology, creating easy-to-reach new post-
| pandemic tourist attractions.
|
| But I don't think the government has that capability. The
| Huldufolk, on the other hand, might:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulduf%C3%B3lk
| kvetching wrote:
| It's amazing that Energy is such a major issue for our
| civilization, yet we ignore that we are sitting on top of many
| millions of gallons of lava
| godtoldmetodoit wrote:
| We don't ignore it, it's just very expensive to drill with
| current technology which limits the locations geo thermal can
| profitably operate in.
| [deleted]
| kvetching wrote:
| We just need a machine that will drill down to the magma,
| simply install heat transfer rods, and we install a steam
| turbine above it. Do this everywhere we have a coal / gas power
| plant
| lisper wrote:
| What could possibly go wrong?
| kvetching wrote:
| Actually this is already being done in Iceland. "Geothermal
| energy is a major source of energy in Iceland, with about
| 25 percent of the country's electricity generated from
| tapping the Earth's heat, according to the National Energy
| Authority of Iceland. About 90 percent of Icelandic
| households are heated with geothermal energy."
|
| Source: https://www.livescience.com/57833-scientists-drill-
| volcano-c....
| lisper wrote:
| Obviously geothermal is possible. Equally obvious: it is
| not economically viable as a global replacement for
| fossil fuels or it would have supplanted them already,
| especially in Iceland.
| djcapelis wrote:
| It definitely has supplanted them in Iceland. Even the
| most remote places that used to use oil are generally
| switching to geothermal for heating. Converting the heat
| to power isn't always worth it because the island has so
| much plentiful hydro power. Fossil fuels account for
| basically 0% of Icelandic power.
| eesmith wrote:
| FWIW, about 12.8% says
| https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/iceland#how-
| much-o... . (Wikipedia says 15% at
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Iceland but that
| uses a 10 year old source.)
| MrDresden wrote:
| Iceland also had the first magma powered electric
| generator back in 2009. Was an accidental result of a
| research drilling project though. Scishow made a video
| about it back in 2014 [0]
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jARDdWuFpK8
| firebaze wrote:
| Brave search "oxygen not included lava steam turbine".
| [deleted]
| mr_woozy wrote:
| marcodiego wrote:
| I can't be the only one to think volcanic eruptions are good
| settings to test Venus rovers. Composition and pressure are still
| different sure, but you gotta test these vehicles on Earth before
| sending them.
| itcrowd wrote:
| The perfect time to recommend Fire of Love (2022):
| https://imdb.com/title/tt16227014/
|
| It a beautiful documentary with footage from the 60s-90s about a
| volcanist couple who embarked on a mission to understand
| volcanoes scientifically and (later) educate the public about
| their dangers. Terrific cinematography!
|
| Edit: I now see it has 99% critics review on rotten tomatoes (88%
| from the audience) https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fire_of_love
| nebula8804 wrote:
| This was literally promoted last night by one of my favorite
| movie writers yesterday. Upon looking at listings all I see
| were showtimes in major cities like NYC. New Jersey just has
| mass market junk :/
| thom wrote:
| Twitter running Chirp and Icelandic volcanoes erupting, all is
| right in the world, here in 2010.
| MrDresden wrote:
| There is also a live video feed[0] available from the coast guard
| helicopter as it flew a reconnaissance flight over the eruption
| with scientists today
|
| edit: sadly the stream has been cut down to minutes from its
| original hour+ length.
|
| [0] https://www.ruv.is/frett/2022/08/03/beint-streymi-ur-
| thyrlu-...
| Melting_Harps wrote:
| > edit: sadly the stream has been cut down to minutes from its
| original hour+ length.
|
| Damn, I opened this when you posted it and wanted to come back
| to it when I had some down time later in the day and saw it's
| been clipped; it was interesting to see how close all those
| camera men got to the active site. I was on Maui in 2014 when
| Kilauea happened on the Big Island and brought back to those
| days.
|
| It was pretty crazy because I was waiting on tons of equipment
| coming in from the mainland which got delayed because of this,
| even though the route was coming in from Oahu before departing
| to Maui. Luckily this eruption doesn't seem like the one in
| 2010 which would compound and already horrible flying
| experience this summer.
|
| I found a link on youtube with an alt live stream, its not as
| lose but still shows a pretty good vantage point [1].
|
| 0: https://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/28/us/hawaii-
| volcano/index.h...
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF2-ecAINWg
| gerdesj wrote:
| That looks a bit close. When rock is bubbling, I think I'd
| rather many miles away from it.
| Kye wrote:
| Perspective can be weird. They're probably a good distance
| away.
| borski wrote:
| This is the same volcano that erupted last summer and moved
| slowly enough that you could actually hike it. It was
| stunning.
| MrDresden wrote:
| As a short and concise report on last year's eruption I
| would recommend this 60 minutes[0] piece
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LI8Gcpawvo
| dylan604 wrote:
| When 60 minutes is the short and concise version, I'm
| wondering if Peter Jackson has the full extended version
| available
| lostlogin wrote:
| If anyone would like to import him, New Zealand would
| appreciate it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| No no, he's perfectly fine right where he is. In fact, if
| you chaps could do a better job of keeping him away from
| the Tolkein estate, that would be lovely.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There are several different kinds of eruptions, some of them
| you want to be many miles away from, others just far enough
| not to be too hot.
|
| It depends on the kinds of materials in the volcano, the
| Iceland volcanoes aren't the ones that do the exploding and
| pyroclastic flows, IIRC.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| In Iceland it really depends on whether the eruption is
| under ice or not. Eyjafjallajokull's last eruption was
| infamously explosive for example.
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