Leo- Weekend of Saturday, April 17, 2010
It’s quite amazing that Mars is still in your sign. Congratulations! This is an extremely rare event. It first entered Leo way back in mid-October and it will remain with you right through to early June. Your life has had a few hassles and it’s gone through several ups and down during this period of time. On the whole, though, Mars has been most helpful by imbuing you with power, energy and drive. A certain goal, not long ago, may have seemed as if it would never come, but thanks to your unrelenting drive, it’s now starting to get back on track.
Scientists say volcano could erupt for months
April 17, 2010
Arthur Max
Smoke billows from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano on April 16, 2010. The volcano is still spewing ash into the air in a massive plume that has disrupted air traffic across Europe and shows little sign of letting up, officials said.
INGOLFUR JULIUSSON/REUTERSPARIS–A cloud of ash hovered over Europe on Friday, casting a pall over an interwoven world.
Made up of microscopic particles as hard as a knife's blade, the dust cloud coughed up by an Icelandic volcano crept across the industrial powerhouses of Europe, into the steppes of Russia and as far south as Hungary.
It left behind stranded travellers, grounded cargo flights, political confusion, and even fears the cloud of grit settling on Earth will endanger the lungs of children, asthmatics and others with respiratory ailments.
According to volcanologists, how long it lasts and how far it spreads depends entirely on two unpredictable events: whether the volcano beneath Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier keeps pumping tonnes of dust into the air and what wind patterns do.
The invisible cloud could split, reaching down into northern Italy, and perhaps break apart over the Alps. Scientists say the volcano could continue erupting for months, with more chaos ensuing with each big belch of basalt powder and gas.
"It's going to be a mess," said volcanologist Michael Rampino of New York University. "It's a menace to air traffic, just sitting there, waiting to go off.''
Henry Margusity, senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, predicted the jet stream winds will continue picking up dust over Iceland and carry it to Britain and Europe "like a spray can of ash" through next Wednesday.
Is it a first? The devastating 19th-century eruption of Indonesia's Krakatau was bigger. In ancient times, Mount Vesuvius buried an entire city and in the 17th century, a series of eruptions from Peru to the South Pacific blocked the sun's energy and sent the Earth's temperatures plunging.
But in this era of global trade crisscrossing the planet by air, the Icelandic eruption has implications that underscore the particular vulnerabilities of the modern world.
The airline industry said it was losing $200 million a day in cancellations and almost two-thirds of Europe's usual 28,000 flights were grounded. Air space remained closed in Britain and across large chunks of north and central Europe.
Restrictions were imposed or lifted as the cloud moved. Flights were suspended at Frankfurt airport, Europe's third-busiest, but Ireland reopened airports in Dublin and Cork.
Potentially lifesaving organs, too, were stuck in transit.
All organs that usually get flown out to patients were instead being distributed to those within driving distance.
"Hearts, lungs and livers, which are normally transported by air, are now delivered regionally and by ground travel," said Nadine Koerner of the German Foundation for Organ Transplant.
The volcanic ash drifted at between 6,000 to 9,000 metres, but was not a solid band of dust and particles. It was moving at around 40 km/h, said Harry Geurts, of the Dutch meteorological office KNMI.
Ash settled like a layer of talcum powder in parts of Iceland and lightly coated parts of Scotland, England, Norway and the Faroe Islands.
Oddly, the sun shone over much of Britain and the European low countries – more used to overcast skies than sunshine. Europe could be treated to spectacular sunsets for weeks or months to come from the lingering dust.
Rampino, the volcano expert, said the explosive power of the eruption was unusual for Iceland, where volcanic activity normally occurs as lava flows. It may have been an interaction between the volcano's magma and the glacial ice that thrust the ash high enough to catch the winds of the jet stream sweeping toward northern Europe, he said.
"It's very difficult to predict the size, predict the behaviour of a volcano," he said.
A study by Italian scientists of the dispersal of ash from the Etna eruption in 1998 highlighted the uncertainty of any predictions.
It said the trajectory of an ash cloud can change within a few hours in response to wind speeds at various heights.
Particle size is also a factor: the smaller the grains of ash, the less likely they will fall to Earth. The minuscule size of the Iceland particles makes them likely to disperse in the atmosphere unless they wash down with rain.
For now, the ash appeared unlikely to have the same cooling effect on the planet as major eruptions in history, including the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which reduced temperatures and lowered sea levels for several years.
The Philippines eruption spewed up to 28 tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the air in two days that acted like millions of tiny mirrors reflecting sunlight back into space, said Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist from the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.
"These are two different types of volcanoes to start out with,'' she said. "We're still stuck with global warming.''
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