Eyjafjallajokull Volcano and its impact on global climate

How many of you can actually pronouce that name?  I don't think I'm going to even try!  Tueday I had the opportunity to participate in a conference call with scientists from NOAA to talk about the impacts of the volcano on the climate as well as their hopes to provide better computer models for future eruptions.   The leaders of the conference:
Tony Hall: Director of NOAA's Alaska Volcanic Ash Advisory Center and Aviation Weather Center
Gary Hufford: Physical Scientist, NOAA's National Weather Service in Alaska
Chet Koblinsky: Director, NOAA Climate Program Office
Stan Benjamin: Director of the Forecast Branch for Global Systems Division, NOAA Research
Barbara Stunder: Research Meteorologist, NOAA's Air Resources Laboratory

As we all know, the ash from the volcano has caused numerous problems for air traffic in Europe.  For about a week, flights have been cancelled due to ash moving over the Atlantic.  Just now are some flights beginning to resume.  The ash has mainly been confined to mostly Europe but a little bit is beginning to migrate back west thanks to high pressure south of Greenland.  As a result, there is an Advisory for Eastern Canada - however, they have not seen signs of any ash yet.  And as of right now, there looks to be no impact of the ash to the U.S. 

Satellite and computer models are the best ways to track and forecast ash plumes.  However, with this particular volcano scientists have had a hard time trying to pinpoint exactly where and how the ash will move.  The reason, numerous puffs from the volcano have made it difficult for models to keep track and forecast future dispersion.  Satellites also prove to be very useful, but the further away the ash cloud is from the volcano the harder it is to detect due to the density of the particles.  That is why the FAA has been very cautious with this volcano.  They have a "no tolerance" rule for planes flying when there is volcanic ash around.  The ultimate goal with this Iceland volcano eruption is to get new information to develop new models for detecting and prediction ash plumes.  Click here for more information on the HYSPLIT (Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory) model.  I dare you to say that five times!!

As far as global climate impacts from the volcano - very little is expected.  To see any type of impact on climate, the ash would have to make it into the stratosphere which is about 10,500 m (33,000 ft) high.  The ash from the Eyjafijallajokull volcano has only made it to 10,000 m, and has actually been decreasing in height the past couple of days.  Eruptions that happen in the tropical belts tend to have a greater impact on climate because of the ability of the ash to circulate the globe.  Eruptions in higher latitudes, like Iceland, tend to remain confined to the higher latitudes.  Locally, there may be some effects that are felt in Europe but anything widespread is not anticipated.