Sunny and windy, thus dust storms on the south coast of Iceland.
At Skarðsfjöruviti
(green dot) the wind has been quite strong, over 10 m/s around noon
(data from vedur.is).
Satellite images show the dust storm nicely, around 13:50
This is a mix of bands – so false colors. The natural colors are below.
Clearly visible dust storm from the South of Iceland around 13 on 16 May 2013.
The PM10 concentration in Reykjavik (GRE station) also peaked, but the source is a little unclear. The wind direction is northerly, and the wind is not very great (around 5 m/s). Traffic contributes, but why this relatively large peak, almost 250 µg/m3 ?
University of Iceland was a partner in the EU project Ice2sea. Amongst results is a better constrain on potential sea level rise. Our contribution was regarding sliding of glaciers, as explained on the poster below.
We have developed a method where the changes in water flux reaching the bed determine the efficiency of the water system to transport water. In very short terms, sudden pulses of water have greater effect on the sliding velocity than “normal” variations, such as diurnal variation during summer.
Today, 14 May 2013, there was quite a bit of dust and ash blowing out to sea. The conditions were prime, sunny and windy, as can be seen from the wind velocity at Þykkvabær, where the average wind speed was over 15 m/s before noon today.
Satellite images taken at 11:50, 12:10, 13:30 and 13:45, show how the dust and most likely ash (although the distinction can be difficult now) was being blown out to sea by the northerly winds.
11:50
12:10
13:30
13:45
