Electric Volcanoes

[starbiter]

Hello Psychegram: The "Quake Prediction 2010" thread has info on CME's causing all sorts of effects. Earthquakes are the authors focus, but CME's also seem to produce warm high pressure zones. This might explain one day being sunny and cool, and the next day being equally sunny and much hotter. Maybe a CME did it. I apologize if you're already following the thread.

[psychegram]

No apology necessary. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

[grado]

cool, one more UFO come to earth.

[Ion01]

Some people have mentioned that the objects around the tether are just some highly reflective particles. If that is the case then why don't we see these same particles all the time around the shuttle and space station and satelites? I think the reason is that they appear bright not because they are reflective but because, unlike the shuttle and space station and stuff, the tether had become highly charge which would result in a large field, and possibly sheath, around the tether. This would cause particles that moved through the field to have to change electrically like a comet.

[redeye]

Eyjafjallajökull webcam

Cheers!

[keeha]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... c-flights/

The ash plume from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which crippled international air travel in April, held a shocking secret: an unexpected electric charge.

Ash plumes directly over erupting volcanoes have been known to generate lightning, and electrically charged ash has been found in previous plumes up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) from their source volcanoes. (See pictures of lighting in the Eyjafjallajökull volcano's ash plume.)

But according to a new study, electric ash from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano was found a record 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) away from the eruption.

At that distance, it wasn't energy from the eruption itself that charged the ash, said study co-author Giles Harrison, a meteorologist at the University of Reading in the U.K. Based on the average size and shape of particles in the ash, "any initial charging that occurred would have decayed away many times over."

In fact, ash from deep in the volcanic plume was still charged 32 hours after being spewed from the Iceland peak, which suggests that the charge was self-renewing, the scientists say.

The discovery means that many volcanic ash plumes might be electrified, which could have implications for the air-travel industry.

[redeye]

Icelandic volcano takes time out from disrupting flights... to produce a giant smoke ring

spaceweather.com(scroll down the page a bit)

Cheers!

[MosaicDave]

Well this is interesting, on many levels: According to a paper published May 27, 2010, in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters:

Researchers have determined that the ash plume that hovered over Scotland after the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in April 2010 carried a significant and self-renewing electric charge.

......

Shortly after the volcano’s active eruption phase began in mid-April, the Met Office contacted Joseph Ulanowski from the Science and Technology Research Institute at the University of Hertfordshire, who together with Giles Harrison from the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, had developed a specialist weather balloon that could assess the location and composition of the volcanic ash clouds.

Their balloons, originally designed and used to study the properties of desert dust clouds, are able to assess not only the size of atmospheric particles but also the electric charge present. Measurements made last year with the balloons in Kuwait and off the west coast of Africa showed clearly that desert dust could become strongly electrified aloft. Charging modifies particle behavior, such as how effectively particles grow and are removed by rain.

A hastily scrambled team travelled to a site near Stranraer in Scotland where a balloon was launched, detecting a layer of volcanic ash 4km aloft, about 600m thick, with very abrupt upper and lower edges. From their measurements, the researchers conclude that neither energy from the volcanic source — more than 1200 kilometres away — nor weather conditions could have been responsible for the position of the charge found by the balloon.

The presence of charge deep inside the plume, rather than on its upper and lower edges, contradicts expectations from models assuming solely weather-induced charging of layer clouds.

Apart from the further confirmations about the electrical phenomena relating to volcanic activity, it seems like they're finding charged dust (a sort of plasma, to my way of thinking) structured into some kind of "double layer", if that's the proper term in this case...

--dc

[MrAmsterdam]

Hi Dave.

You are describing "dusty plasma's". Deserts, vulcanic ash and charge. It all adds up.

But lets take the empirical view; has something simular ever happend? Yes, there is an example of this!

Watch what happens when an airline jet hits a vulcanic ash cloud - dusty plasma...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVctfPGY3BI

This documentary and the observations of the weatherballoon makes the picture a bit more complete, right?

And another correlation from wikipedia;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_ash

Electromagnetic wave insulation

Volcanic ash particles are charged and disturb communication by radio.[24]

-----

Rain and lightning combined with ash can lead to power outages, breakdowns of communication, and disorientation.[12]

Volcanic ash particles have a maximum residence time in the troposphere of a few weeks. The finest tephra particles remain in the stratosphere for only a few months, they have only minor climatic effects, and they can be spread around the world by high-altitude winds. This suspended material contributes to spectacular sunsets. The major climate influence from volcanic eruptions is caused by gaseous sulfur compounds, chiefly sulfur dioxide, which reacts with OH and water in the stratosphere to create sulfate aerosols with an residence time of about 2–3 years.

Do gaseous sulfur compounds have any electric properties?

It seems to have magnetic properties;

http://iopscience.iop.org/1009-0630/7/5/023

Efficiency of Removing Sulfur Dioxide in the Air by Non-Thermal Plasma Along with the Application of the Magnetic Field

Abstract

The non-thermal plasma created by high voltage pulsed power supply can be used to remove sulfur dioxide in the air, but how to increase the removing efficiency is not clear. It is novel to apply the magnetic field in removing SO2 as discussed in this paper. The mechanisms of removing sulfur dioxide by non-thermal plasma along with the application of the magnetic field are analyzed, and the related factors affecting the removal efficiency, such as the magnitude of pulsed voltage, the polarity of the pulse, the layout of the discharge electrode, especially the magnetic field are experimentally investigated. It can be concluded that the purification efficiency is improved significantly by applying the magnetic field.

[jjohnson]

Sulfur (and nitrogen) compounds are critical components in the Earth's atmosphere for a different reason than electric plasma phenomena.

Henrik Svensmark's research trail in his recent book, The Chilling Stars, shows that the most effective condensation nuclei necessary for lower-level cloud formation are created from sulfuric acid, along with a host of other ultra-fine liquid specks. Volcanoes are one source of this, but their production tonnage is relatively small, and temporary or intermittent. The oceans are far larger, continuous sources, sort of "watery volcanoes" as Svensmark termed them.

Sources of the tiny nucleation particles include sea salt from wave action, ammonia (NH4, a source of nitrogen which teams up with sulfuric acid to create tiny specks of ammonium sulfate), dimethyl sulfide (converts to sulfuric acid) from breakdown of dead microscopic plants in surface waters, and lightning production of oxides of nitrogen which, with water, convert to nitric acid.

The tiny specks need to combine to a size of about 100 nm to become ideal cloud-formation nuclei. Normally this takes time and solar UV radiation. A fortuitous discovery by a research aircraft following the trail of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere led to the realization that electrically charged particles (ions, electrons) could create cloud-seeding nuclei at prodigious rates, compared to both sunlight and lightning.

One clue led to another. Observation of contrails behind jet aircraft led to the realization that ionized particles created by burning jet fuel (flames are ionized plasmas, after all) led to the condensation of larger amounts of water vapor than expected. From there, it was a clear leap to cosmic rays as the source of the bulk of the cloud-forming 'seeds', mostly in the lower atmosphere. It is these clouds which control the radiation energy balance between Earth and space (lots of clouds — higher albedo, or reflectivity — means more solar energy is reflected back into space before it can warm the surface). Thus it was that he discovered the link among cosmic rays, and their resulting muon showers, the Sun's magnetic activity and how it controls how many rays strike the earth, and long term climate changes.

Yes, a weak sulfuric or nitric acid solution is likely partially ionized and therefore electrically conductive, but with respect to volcanoes and their effects on Earth, this is probably immaterial and has only small local effects, like possibly helping lightning strokes form in volcanic conditions. Volcanoes have rather small effects from the larger global perspective, although their disruption of human lives and activities, and their economic effects, can be disastrous.

[starbiter]

There is another source of sulfur in the atmosphere.

http://www.varchive.org/itb/sulphur.htm

Thunderstorms seem to produce sulfur.

michael

[Lloyd]

* Volcanoes usually produce sulfur and you say sulfur compounds can increase cloud formation. Don't forget that lightning or electric discharges can transmute oxygen into sulfur. I've heard that there's often a sulfur smell after a nearby lightning strike. It's not necessarily true that clouds can lower Earth surface temperatures. At least dust doesn't seem to do so on Mars. When Mars was covered with dust storms in 2001 or so, its temperature was said to have risen, instead of falling. Dust is a better conductor of electricity and the greater flow of electricity to Mars from space may have caused the heating. Volcanic dust would presumably have the same effect, although I think lower temperatures are often recorded on Earth after eruptions.

[MosaicDave]

There's an article in Scientific Computing's online magazine, with interesting imagery taken from the International Space Station, of the Sarychev volcano eruption on June 12, 2009. (The Sarychev volcano is in the Kuril Islands, which extend in an arc North from Japan, to the Kamchatka peninsula of Russia.) Because the original article will probably eventually be removed from the site, I've archived it here. Note that there's also an incredible high-resolution image, and an interesting video clip taken during the flyover.

The fascinating thing, to me, is the perfectly circular hole in the clouds surrounding the eruption. Somewhere else on the Internet, I've seen it claimed that this is because of the "shock wave" of the eruption, but of course that doesn't make any sense.

What's really going on here? Is there some invisible column of ionized atmospheric conduction, that's caused the clouds within a certain radius to precipitate as rain? How might this relate to the lightning that supposedly often accompanies volcanic eruptions?

I remember building cloud chambers years ago, and watching the little trails produced by radioactive things nearby. Is something similar going on here, where ionization is causing atmospheric moisture to selectively condense?

[kiwi]

Dave

I found a vid on y-tube about a year ago,I have been searching for it again recently but no luck so far, it showed an eruption from what was a remote camera looking down at the cone of a volcano, the footage was being monitored in real-time as the excited voices of the scientists observing attested to .... all of a sudden, a series of small eruptions started around the rim , you would swear it was a controlled detonation, as it was in a very sequential pattern and looked anything but "natural". I guess if asked as to how it compared to other eruptions viewed from a similar vantage point, I would have to say I have never seen any, .. and am not envoking human or otherwise intervention.... nature is the champion of the strange as we know (us old buggers anyway )

If anyway knows of this footage it would be great to have a link, I will keep looking

The photo from your OP is amazing, local paper here had a full front page shot of it when it came out last year, as regards the cloud ring,it sure is distinctive, here is a link to similar "toroid" type phenomena, volcano's blowing smoke rings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B88DyWruqlo

and in a related way check this out .... there seems to be a natural occurence of circular type movements in different mediums throughout nature, its beyond my powers of deduction but it may turn out a key in understanding some of the energy processes that go on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT-fctr32pE

Harmonic-grid theory researcher Bruce Cathie claims to have found a pattern with the distribution of volcano's around the planet, said to show they are situated at geographical "cross-roads" where harmonic values of importance converge, he relates the sun position also as a factor governing eruptions .. I can provide you a link if you are interested

One question I would like to ask regards volcanoes is the observing of lightning discharging amongst the dust and ash during eruptions, do these "bolts" show a connection also to the sprites etc that storm-lightning does? ... funding for research I imagine is almost zero, so wont be suprised if thats still an unknown

[mharratsc]

I looked and looked at this picture, and something kept bothering me about it. I just couldn't put my finger on it until just now...

To my mind, it appears as though a large section of water vapor from that cloud layer was 'excavated' and rolled into that somewhat spherical shape along with much of the ash... even as a z-pinch in a Birkeland current is supposed to agregate matter in its surrounding area and begin pinching it into a spherical area with a torus of plasma surrounding its circumference.

Perhaps it was just coincidence, perhaps it's just my imagination, but I see the water vapor forming a spherical shape around an axial pillar of ash, and ring of ash seems to be extruding itself outside the sphere of water vapor around its circumference...?

I have a question for mainstream to answer as well- if this entire picture is ruled by thermodynamics, then how is that water vapor not turning to steam from the scalding ash that's in the middle of it? What force do they think could constrain it to a sphere with a cloud of superheated ash rising right through the middle of it??

Just thinking out loud.