Why Should I Care?

Even after listening to it said multiple times I still can’t, but then again my language skills (especially for those based on Viking speak) have never been one of my strong points. If you want to learn, you can follow along as the Good Morning American Crew listens and admits their inability to get it. So while you may not be able to say Eyjafjallajokull, it is very likely that you have at least heard numerous stories in the last couple of weeks about people impacted by the ‘Icelandic Volcanic Eruption’. So how is it that an event that seems so remote can have such a major impact on so many people? 

Simple really, our planet does an excellent job of transporting event outcomes over very large scales. Whether it is volcanic ash spread in the atmopshere from Iceland over the Atlantic and over most of Europe, a tsunami forming off the coast of Chile sending killer waves across all regions of the Pacific, or carbon dioxide from all over the globe mixing in the atmosphere over Hawaii, each of these events demonstrate different ways of how things that occur near you impact others far away. Or, the reverse of that, things occurring very far removed from where you are impacting your location. 

Eyjafjallajokull erupts and electrifies

In the case of this volcanic eruption, most folks when they heard probably thought about the people of Iceland and how it might be impacting them. However for anyone around the globe that had travel plans to or from Europe, this event would soon loom large over their heads as well. The danger of the glass-like ash that was spreading through the levels of the atmosphere commonly used by commercial airplanes would essentially shut down European airspace for days. When all is said and done I am sure we will here estimates in the billions of dollars of economic impact this event had, with estimates for the airline industry alone already over 1.7 billion. 

Now us weather/climate geeks were looking at this eruption from a whole different perspective. Any time there is a major volcanic eruption, analysis is usually done to examine how wide spread and how high the ash plume travels. The reason being is that the sulfur dioxide content when it reaches the stratosphere typically become sulfuric acid based aerosols that actually work very well at reflecting the suns energy and in turn can lead to a temporary cooling of the planet (NASA has a good brief write-up here on the topic). What is particularly interesting about the effectiveness of major eruptions at cooling the planet, is that it has been proposed on multiple occasions that we should deliberatiely act like a volcano in an effort to cool the planet (good thorough example here). A reminder that sometimes the major impacts can actually be positive. 

No matter what your angle may be in looking at this event, it serves as an excellent reminder that a seemingly distant event can bring major change your way. Sometimes the change can be small, other times large, sometimes slow to occur, other times sudden. Whatever the case it sends some basic reminders for all of us to think about: 

1. Learn to adapt – no matter what change might be coming your way, change will indeed come
2. Be flexible – plans may change, plans may fall through, not being rigid will make dealing with it easier
3. Think before acting – that’s right, what you do impacts other, an act can seem small yet the effects atsronomical

May will be hurricane month here at WSIC. We will have a couple of posts related to tropical cyclones as early estimates for this North Atlantic hurricane season predict a very active year. Until then!