Volcanic Winter

@snowman19 When do you foresee the PDO actually shifting? Do you think we stay predominantly -PDO for a while or do you think a shift may happen within several years?

The larger eruption I'm hearing was 0.94 cubic kilometers, combining with the earlier 0.40 cubic kilometers of the eruption on the 17th, this event is a clear VEI 5 overall and actually larger than St Helens in 1980, though that erupted 1.2 cubic kilometers in one sustained eruption. Still, this is a very, very significant event. Usually one eruption per decade will reach VEI 5 levels.

And just to give a sense of how insane the VEI scale and explosive volcanism in general gets, assuming Ruang hits a minimal VEI 5 of 1 cubic kilometer (St Helens was 1.2 cubic kilometer, much of that erupted laterally), it would have to further erupt 10x more volume to reach a minimal VEI 6 (around what Hunga Tonga did, and a little less than Pinatubo). From current levels (again assuming 1 cubic kilometer - a minimal VEI 5), it would have to erupt 100x more material to reach a VEI 7, 150x in the case of Tambora. To reach a ‘supereruption’ at VEI 8, it would need 1000x its current erupted volume. The Toba supereruption 75kya was 3500-5000x this hypothetical VEI 5 Ruang eruption.

Absolutely Don. I see they revised the first blast up to half a Tg up from 0.3 from the initial estimate. I can’t overstate how impressive this entire sequence has been. The first blast was the destruction of the existing lava dome (think a plug of viscous magma that hardens into a dome shape blocking the conduit and helping to increase pressure in the system). It was notably intense transpiring only over a couple hours and outputting mid VEI 4 volume; that’s extremely impressive. Most volcanoes would then go quiet and enter a prolonged period of repose after such a blast. Instead, Ruang extruded another, even larger lava dome which hardened into another plug. The injection of fresh magma into the chambers below apparently never stopped, and Ruang built back up like a pressure cooker. This second blast was utterly spectacular, the amount of power behind blasts of that nature is bewildering. Like Grimsvotn in 2011, most VEI 4-5 plinian eruptions are only moderately intense and transpire over 12 or more hours. You have a generally sustained eruption column that may occasionally collapse into pyroclastic flows down the flanks of the system. Ruang just did everything all at once, twice!

Indonesia in the Sangihe islands, near North Sulawesi. Gunung Ruang

@snowman19 This eruption is even larger than the first, this is incredible. The first was a solid VEI 4 by itself with about .40 cubic kilometers of erupted material. Given this blast now is even larger, there really is a chance for a collective VEI 5 event here. These are incredible sequences of lava dome creation and destruction, like Shiveluch last year but even larger and more powerful.

TWC was my childhood. I was a kid in its heyday. Honestly I probably credit it partially with my intense passion for earth science.

Yup, we both have that chilly Pine Barrens night time microclimate. I’ve been amazed just how consistently chilly it gets down here on clear nights. Pretty sure we were right around 0-2 during one of those stronger Arctic pushes in the mid 2010’s, but it was before I had a reliable weather station on my property. I’m backed up to woods off 37 near the western border with Manchester / Lakehurst. Can be a pretty chilly little pocket, and slightly more elevated than the downtown area. I’m at about 60-70ft.

Pine Barrens doin its thang, morning low of 28 today. Solid layer of frost on my windshield.

https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/ruang/news/239570/Ruang-volcano-Sulawesi-Sangihe-Islands-Indonesia-eruption-plume-drifts-over-1000-km-currently-over-b.html "GEMS measurements of sulfur dioxide (SO₂) from the eruption on April 18th show notable data gaps in areas with high SO₂ column amounts, likely due to clouds or ash. A very preliminary estimate suggests a total sulfur dioxide mass of approximately 0.3 teragrams (Tg)." A preliminary estimate of the sulfur release suggests about 0.3 Tg's, which is about spot on for a VEI 4. Shouldn't be a major climate player unless these figures are way off. El Chichon did ~7 Tg's as lower end VEI 5, Pinatubo was more than double that. We know HTHH was huge but atypical with most of the sulfur ending up in the ocean, initial estimates put it about 0.4 Tg but I've seen it revised as high as 1-2 Tg's. What makes this Ruang eruption interesting is actually in how fast/intense the main blast was, which was only over a period of a couple hours. The other precursor eruptions were much smaller so the main volume of the event was in the big boom. Just my thoughts / speculation at this point.

IMHO that kind of speculation is very premature. As mentioned it can be deceiving in both directions. Smart people were calling HTHH a 3-4 a day after it happened thinking the entire column was steam (it wasn’t, 1.9 cubic kilometers of ash in it which is already well into VEI 5 territory). And hidden underwater was another 6-8 cubic kilometers of ignimbrite (massive pyroclastic flows from caldera collapse). Just IMO and I’m not caught up on this one yet. To answer your question it would be rare but not even historically without precedent. Six years before Tambora’s VEI 7 in 1815, there was a mystery eruption from a not fully identified volcano that was at least a VEI 6 in 1809. A six and a seven that close together is pretty mind boggling. And remember a 6 could be 10 cubic kilometers like Pinatubo or 99 cubic kilometers, basically a near 7. At VEI 6 level is when the scale sort of breaks in terms of perception. Things just start getting really ridiculous massive.

Thank you Snowman, I’m just getting caught up on this. One of the few days I’m not being a compulsive volcano obsessive something significant happens. Hoping for the safety of everyone impacted by this, I believe there’s a few hundred living on that island? I’ll post when I’m caught up with accurate info, I tend to avoid speculation. I also don’t like trying to analyze the size of an event while it’s occurring and before all the data is reviewed, it can be deceiving in both directions. I’m trying to verify column height, something to the level of a VEI 5 typically has no problem clearing 20km for a sustained period of time and I’m seeing this latest blast was about 17km based on sources I’m looking at now. Also unclear of the duration of that blast, which matters in terms of volume which is ultimately what determines VEI at this level. The satellite imagery is impressive though, trying to verify. In terms of SO2 loading in the stratosphere, we want to see something similar to El Chichon’s ~7 Tg’s for detectable surface impacts. Probably at least 4-5+.

Wow, enjoy!!! Hornstrandir is unbelievably gorgeous and looks like you’re in Middle Earth. We go in winter pretty exclusively so Hornstrandir hasn’t been an option for us, but it’s a very committed trip to be sure. Be safe and have the very best time, I’m jealous!

Partial shot, I actually like how the clouds enhance visibility in my iPhone lens. Wasn’t really able to be captured otherwise at 88-90%, whatever exactly the north half of Jersey was. Still very cool!

@LibertyBell Did you know the Palisades are a local outcrop of one of the largest flood basalt eruptions in the past billion years? CAMP - Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, an enormous series of lava flow eruptions along the seams of Pangea when it first began to break apart. We actually have some interesting geology in the region apart from the boring sedimentary coastal plain. At one point the Appalachians were earth’s Himalayas of the distant past, now long eroded to a mere shadow of their former enormity. We know flood basalts are most common under large stretches of continental crust (especially when the continents are in a supercontinent configuration), often coinciding with the rifting episodes that ultimately split them apart. It’s why a hypothesized location for earth’s next flood basalt is the East African Rift, where Somalia is slowly being separated from continental Africa and most of Africa’s extant volcanism is currently located. The Virunga plateau is a large magma bulge, and there could be something of a proto-plume down there which would one day yield a major flood basalt episode. This is like hundreds of thousands to millions of years in the future though. There hasn’t been a flood basalt episode on earth since the Columbia River Basalts of the PNW ~16mya, which is the hypothesized birth of the Yellowstone plume which traces to the Yellowstone supervolcano today. There’s also a supposed growing magma body under parts of New England, and the Adirondacks are some odd magmatic uplift feature and could also be a small plume in its early stages. Who knows what the distant future could hold there, could be some major volcanic episodes if the inflation that made the mountains continues.