Eyjafjallajökull’s ash cloud electrified itself
MAY 27, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024367
Physics Today : The first peer-reviewed scientific paper on the Icelandic volcano came out today. In it, Giles Harrison of the University of Reading in the UK and his colleagues reported the results of sending instrument-laden balloons up through the ash cloud soon after it had reached Scotland. Lightning and other electrical phenomena are expected above an eruption because ash particles become charged as they shoot through the air. Scotland is too far from Iceland for the original eruption-produced electrical charge to have survived. Even so, Harrison found evidence for strong charging inside the cloud—as if the cloud could replenish its charge. “Detailed volcanic plume properties, such as the particle size, concentration and charge found by our weather balloon are important in predicting the impact on aircraft,” he says.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
