Let's repost the table from the other day:
20 µg/m³: WHO 24-hour safety limit. Beyond this point, the overall mortality rate statistically increases (it pushes people who are on the edge over)
20 µg/m³: EU air standards annual mean limit. If average annual SO2 levels in an area exceed this level, the area is in non-compliance.
52 µg/m³: Average SO2 concentration in major Chinese cities.
125 µg/m³: 24-hour EU air quality standard. If an area averages above this level for 24 hours more than three times in a year, it is in non-compliance.
142 µg/m³: Average levels in Beijing during January, the most polluted month of the year.
350 µg/m³: 1-hour EU air quality standard. If an area averages above this level for 1 hour more than 24 times in a year, it is in non-compliance.
500 µg/m³: WHO 10-minute safety limit. Even short-term exposure to these levels can cause minor irritation to healthy individuals and can cause health complications for people with breathing disorders, heart disease, children, and other vulnerable populations.
500 µg/m³: EU alert threshold. If levels exceed this point for three consecutive hours, a public health alert is issued for the area.
1000 µg/m³: Highest daily concentrations taken from the air next to Russian smelters.
Beyond this, sulfur dioxide acts in concert with particulate matter to dramatically lower the required SO2 levels for complications to occur.
So first when the
Mist came to the Eastfjörds, it broke all records in Iceland and was measured at 660 µg/m³. Then it crushed that record and settled in at nearly 2600 µg/m³, described as
"being in an enclosed space with a diesel engine" or
"standing right behind a freight truck and breathing the exhaust straight out of the tailpipe". It was a pretty terrible figure, but I added at the time:
I wish I could say that this is the worst it's going to get. But just like before... there really is no known upper bound.
Little did I think it'd happen so soon. Thanks for joining us for
Eldfjallavakt
I'll just let the graph tell the story:
Nearly 4000 µg/m³. I have no words to add to the significance of that, except to repeat what I said last time:
I wish I could say that this is the worst it's going to get. But just like before... there really is no known upper bound.
Dear god, Holuhraun, please don't prove me right again so soon. :(
Umhverfisstofnun, the Icelandic equivalent of the EPA, basically liveblogged the spike. At the peak they added a brand new recommendation to their existing list: turning on your geothermal radiators (the standard source of heat for homes in Iceland). By heating the air in the house, you make it expand and thus produce positive pressure in your home, helping keep the gases outside from coming in.
I really don't want to talk about the pollution there any more right now. Let's talk about something less depressing, like massive lava flows getting ready to destroy beautiful waterfalls.
The lava is now just a lava bomb's throw away from Vaðalda:
Here's a closeup - the orange line is from yesterday evening, not this evening, so it's pretty much arriving now. If you look closely you can see the waterfall Skínandi near the junction of the Svartá and the Jökulsár.
It's pretty much certain now that the flow (up to 200 million cubic meters) is going to dam up both the Jökulsár á Fjöllum and the Svartá. But what sort of lake will it create? The scale and shape of course depend on the future progression of the flows, but here's one prospect, courtesy of Sigurður Sigurðarson:
Regardless of its form, the lake would be at its deepest (at least in the early phases) no more than 5-10 meters deep. Why? Because that's how high of a wall the lava flow is building; once it gets 8-10 meters tall, it spills over to the sides and extends the flow widthwise.
However the lake shapes out, there is expected to be a new waterfall, one with much higher flow rate than Skínandi - even if it might lack his charm.
Bad news on the dike: pressure is building again, due to influx in the dike being faster than outflux. While not at as rapid a rate as in the early days, the rifts are resuming widening, which poses an increased risk of new or expanded eruptions in the area.
We got a question a couple days ago on this blog that I didn't know the answer to: how high are these spatter cones that have formed on Holuhraun? Well, now I've got the answer: 70 meters tall and growing. That's about as tall as the biggest giant sequoias, or about 3/4ths the height of the Statue of Liberty, ground to torch.
The previous article makes an interesting point: in many ways, this eruption is improving the area. As you may have noticed from the pictures, the Holuhraun area was formerly rather uninteresting sand, and a rather plain rivercourse. While there may be some beauty that gets destroyed, I think on the balance it's going to have created a fascinating landscape for future generations to enjoy - craters, lava dams, waterfalls, etc.
Good news on the rural front: while Bárðarbunga is causing no end of headaches (figuratively and now literally) for ranchers, the grain crops are fine... so far. The effects of the sulfur pollution have come too late to reduce yields and it's not expect to contaminate the crops. However, if Bárðarbunga erupts before harvest time, the ash could still ruin the crops in the fields, so farmers have their fingers crossed that she holds out at least a few more weeks.
The transportation services aren't the only ones preparing for catastrophic floods taking out infrastructure - the grid operators are as well. They've been shipping hardware to near the danger zones to be able to rapidly set up new high voltage lines that floods could potentially take out.
Sorry that I haven't had time to finish editing the interview with Þorbjörg yet - I had trouble with my editing software and had to reinstall. It should be ready tomorrow, assuming she approves of the editing. :)
Picture and video time.
Today's FLEXPART SO2 forecast:
Update, 4:15: Current levels in Reyðarfjörður seem to be holding at around 100 µg/m³. Assuming that continues, the total statistics will have been approximately:
500 µg/m³ average over 24 hours - 25 times the WHO 24-hour safety level, 4 times the EU limit
900 µg/m³ average over 12 hours
1100 µg/m³ average over 6 hours
1250 µg/m³ average over 3 hours, twice in a row
2500 µg/m³ average over 1 hour - 7 times the EU limit; 9 violations over the course of the day, most severe.
4000 µg/m³ average over 10 minutes - 8 times the WHO 10-minute safety level
As noted previously, this is just for the SO2, but there's also particulate matter, smaller amounts of gases like hydrogen fluoride, and so on which make the problem much worse.
This is not just uncomfortable - it's outright dangerous.
Update, 3:02 14 September: I think unfortunately that I'm too tired to finish my new article for today. :( My apologies to you all.
