Eyjafjallajökull's Counterpart Long Overdue for Eruption

Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano has for the past week heavily disrupted European travel and with yet another blast of ash spewing from the mountain's bleeding crater, everyone wants to know – what's next!? Well, that brings up an interesting point...

Over the past couple days tremors from the active Eyjafjallajökull have sparked the interest of vulcanologist's who are studying a nearby dormant volcano by the name of Katla. Katla, located only 12 miles from the epicenter of last week's eruption, is connected to Eyjafjallajökull by a network of magma channels. Although it is currently showing no signs of an eruption, the last three times Eyjafjallajökull erupted, so did Katla. Additionally, Katla awakens every 80 years or so, and having last exploded in 1918, it is now slightly overdue.

Experts say Katla's substantial ice cap is a major worry and an eruption would be 10 times stronger and shoot higher and larger plumes of ash into higher altitudes than its smaller neighbor. This is because the dormant Katla is buried under ice 500 meters thick beneath the massive Myrdalsjokull glacier, one of Iceland's largest. That means it has more than twice the amount of ice that the current eruption has burned through, thus threatening a new and possibly longer aviation standstill across Europe – and 'perhaps' affecting the global climate.

Only time will tell if history repeats itself, but if patterns mean anything, there is a good chance a bigger, more dangerous Icelandic volcano lurks.

Eyjafjallajökull vs. Pinatubo on Climate Change

Some might recall the Summer 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. This epic volcano sent an enormous volume of ash across the globe, ultimately altering the world's climate.

The eruption of Pinatubo resulted in a reduction in the normal amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface by roughly 10 percent in 1991 — 1992, which led to a decrease in northern hemisphere average temperatures of more than 1°F, and a global fall of about .7°F. Doesn't seem like much right? But on a global scale the impact was nearly as big as the volcano itself!

Well, Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano doesn't promise to be as big a deal when it comes to climate change. While the volcano is treating European sky watchers to spectacular sunsets and hampering air travel, as determined by NASA's Aura Satellite, the amount of sulfur dioxide spewed by the volcano so far poses no threat globally. This is mostly because the current plume is below the stratosphere, where volcanic gases can have large-scale weather effects due to the lack of rain there that prohibits the removal of volcanic material. Experts verify this and expect that the destination and duration of the volcanic plume will be altered by rain and winds and it should be washed away as it continues to drift east, likely never even impacting the United States.

However, the potential for Eyjafjallajökull to impact the Earth's climate is still there if it begins to erupt more violently. An eruption of an Icelandic volcano called Laki in 1783 had large effects on climate. It created a long-lasting haze over Europe, cooled temperatures globally and altered monsoon flows that created droughts and famines in Egypt and India.