As some of you have seen, I have taken a particular interest in the current ash cloud over Europe mostly because to the outsider like myself, it really looks like the decision to shut down the whole European airspace is not based on real science. Here are some of the issues that bother me:- Several airlines have flown some of their planes with no problems (i.e. they have checked the inside of the combustion chamber of their planes and seen no issues it seems). These airline planes do not have the capability to really sample the part of the sky they went through.
- I haven't heard any of the airplane and engine manufacturers communicating on these issues.
- The VAAC is producing maps based on models. However complete these models are, very little seems to be done with regards to comparing the results of these models and actual in-situ observations.
- I have not seen any convincing evidence from any of the satellite photos (the includes ENVISAT) that we know really where the cloud is altitude- and concentration-wise. Let me be more specific. The European Space Agency has a system in place where the data from satellites are being sent to the VAACs through an SO2 alert list:
... In addition to VAACs, the information – derived from the SCIAMACHY instrument on ESA’s Envisat, GOME-2 and IASI on MetOp, OMI on EOS-Aura and AIRS on Aqua – is delivered to volcanological observatories, health care organisations, scientists, etc.
To know whether aircraft may safely pass under or over volcanic ash clouds and to forecast better the future motion of the clouds, the VAACs need more accurate information on the altitude and vertical size of an ash plume.Cloud-free snow-covered Iceland 22 FebruaryThis is the main focus of ESA’s Support to Aviation for Volcanic Ash Avoidance (SAVAA) project which aims to set up a demonstration system able to ingest satellite data and meteorological wind fields, in order to compute the injection height profile of volcanic emissions, using trajectory and inverse modelling. The system can then be implemented into the operational environment of the VAACs.
Furthermore, the SAVAA project is providing complementary data to the SACS SO2 alerts by developing volcanic ash alert services for VAACs based on satellite data measured in the infrared part of the spectrum.,,,while the SO2 concentration is interesting, one notes the different level of coverage and one wonders how the different maps are being reconciled (between different instruments).
One also wonders how these maps are being integrated into the graphics of the VAACs because I don't see a reasonable connection between those and these:
And so, I am eventually curious as to how the current process that closes the airspace of an entire continent is really science based. I am looking for any information where field data are in fact reconciled with satellite data.
Oh! Never mind!
ReplyDeleteRemember the swine flu?
Govt "scientists" at work...
Once again, I don't believe you are right here either. If you want to understand how fast we did on the swine flu, then take a look this video and forward to 11minutes and 22 seconds.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmAugMSJ1-Y&playnext_from=TL&videos=-_LcgJoKqck
I think I can safely say we dodged a real bullet thanks to "government" scientist on this one. Now what I am asking here is who is in charge of the real scientific analysis, because I don't see them in the news.
Igor.
Once again, I don't get your point!
ReplyDeleteThe video is self-congratulating propaganda from CDC scientists, they worked bright and fast and blah, blah, blah but the point of contention is:
Was the swine flu truly a threat?
It was highly contagious but it wasn't VIRULENT
It was plainly a SCAM organised by the patent holders and supported by some researchers (very good for grant money, isn't it?)
Kev,
ReplyDeleteThe bulk of the work was not performed by CDC researchers.
The fact that it was virulent or not, depends on who you ask. It certainly was virulent to middle-aged people who died of it in a few days. The fact that this section of the population was affected was a concern that deserved ample caution. But once this issue ( ash cloud, SARS, Swine flu) is uncovered, there is absolutely little leg room for the politicians to make a not-conservative decision. This is exactly what happened here with the ash cloud because they seem to have been blinded by the lack of actual experimentation in the air (as in flying instrumented aircraft through the different layers of the cloud), they could not make any other decision than this one. Researchers don't work for free nor have they the possibility of using their infrastructure without some green light from the policy folks, only the political bodies can allow funds to be disbursed to make those instrumented flights.
The entry is really about making sure the political bodies exert scientifically based decisions using actual scientific data (as opposed to just models).
Igor.
The entry is really about making sure the political bodies exert scientifically based decisions using actual scientific data (as opposed to just models).
ReplyDeleteEntirely agreed but unfortunately this is the very reason that we are headed for ever more wild rides and dumbfounding blunders:
Like oil and water science and politics don't mix, science is about truth politics is about lies (cannot displease the constituency...)