Posts Tagged ‘iceland’

Grímsvötn Eldfjall frá Geimnum

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011


That’s right, rocket scientists, weather spacecraft have seen the erupting Grímsvötn volcano in Iceland and it’s pretty cool. This one’s from Meteosat-9:

The animation shows Meteosat-9 observations from the High Resolution Visible (HRV) channel, providing measurements with a resolution of 1 km at the sub-satellite point, representing roughly a 3-5 km resolution over Iceland. At around 19:15 UTC, a very rapid eruption of the Grímsvötn volcano occurred, which is visible from the animation below. The eruption is transporting a large amount of water vapour and ash significantly higher than the cloud deck heights over Iceland.

Meteosat-9 is located on the Greenwich Meridian, while the GOES-13 spacecraft, also a weather observation satellite, is located at 75º West. So here we have a different angle…