BJ Deming

Grimsvötn (January 22, 2024, 2252 UTC)

January 22, 2024 2:52 p.m., Pacific: All clear, per IMO today:

When the glacier retreat began, the flight color code for the volcano was changed to yellow because there was an increased chance of an eruption following a pressure relief after water flowed from Grímsvatten. Since the glacier run has ended and no short-term changes in activity have been observed, the flight color code will be changed back to green.

In the long term, however, there has been some activity in Grímsvatn, and in the last five months, the number of earthquakes has exceeded the number that is considered normal background activity. If there were to be a volcanic eruption in Grímsvatten, it is expected that intense increases in small seismic activity would be noticed before an eruption began. Scientists from the Norwegian Meteorological Agency and the Earth Sciences Institute will continue to monitor Grímsvatten very closely and share information if activity increases further.

January 14, 2024, 3:53 p.m., Pacific: Well, a little good news about an Icelandic volcano today — IMO reports that, thus far, there has been no seismic uptick in the caldera as the glacial outburst flood has peaked.

Hope that quiet continues!

Updated January 14 at: 2:10 p.m

The glacial runoff from Grímsvatn reached its peak late last night or night based on the runoff turbulence, which has been decreasing since then. The flow and electrical conductivity in Gígjukvísl continues to grow, but it can be expected that the flow will reach its peak in the river about 1-2 solar cycles later than in Grímsvatten. There has been little seismic activity in the area, but one small earthquake was recorded this morning.

The Norwegian Meteorological Agency, together with the scientists of the University’s Institute of Earth Sciences, will continue to closely monitor Grímsvatten.

January 12, 2024, 4:43 p.m., Pacific: Per today’s update (autotranslated), runoff meltwater is increasing from the lake under the ice and above the caldera, but there are no signs of an imminent eruption.

They note:

A flow stream is constantly growing on the seismometer on Grímsfjall, which indicates that the flow is still increasing from the Lakes. It is still expected that the glacier run will reach its peak in Grímsvatten around or soon after the weekend and in Gígjukvísl 1-2 days later.

The Norwegian Meteorological Agency, together with the scientists of the University’s Institute of Geosciences, will continue to closely monitor Grímsvatn, but the next news update is expected on Monday, January 15, unless activity changes over the weekend. The Met Office’s Nature Watch monitors the area throughout the solar cycle and will send out notifications earlier if needed.

January 11, 2024, 5:44 p.m., Pacific: The IMO has been raising and lowering alert levels between Green and Yellow recently, but it was only low-level activity and nothing developed.

However, today Grimsvötn had the largest earthquake since monitoring began and water levels are rising.

Per IMO (emphasis added):

VONA message

Grímsvötn

Time: 11. Jan 2024, 12:17 GMT

Color code: Yellow

Volcano id: 373010

Activity summary:
This morning at 06:53, a magnitude 4.3 earthquake occurred in Grímsvötn. This is the largest earthquake in Grímsvötn since the beginning of measurements in 1991. In recent days, a slow and gradual increase in tremor has been detected on Grímsfjall, and the water level in Gígjukvísl has been increasing since yesterday night. Therefore, a glacial flood (jökulhlaup) has started from Grímsvötn. It is likely that the earthquake this morning is due to pressure release following the onset of the glacial flood. Due to the ongoing flood and increase in seismicity the aviation color code for Grímsvötn volcano is raised to yellow as the likelihood of an eruption has slightly increased.

Cloud height:
NA

Other cloud information:
NA

Remarks:
There are past examples of Grímsvötn eruptions starting, following a flood. The drainage of the water from Grímsvötn lake reduces the pressure on top of the volcano and this can result in an eruption. This happened in 2004, and before that in 1934 and in 1922. However, twelve glacial floods have occurred since 2004 without triggering an eruption. Seismicity over the past 4 months has been above background.

Let’s wait and see what happens.

Here is a graphic of the expected flood path:

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October 12, 2022: The alert was raised to Yellow again as a small glacial flood occurred. However, in its latest update, IMO notes that there is little to no seismicity and they see no other signs that indicate an impending eruption.

August 16, 2022, 6:40 p.m., Pacific: That didn’t last long. I just read on the GVP site that Iceland volcanologists lowered the alert back to Green/Normal on August 9th.

August 4, 2022, 12 p.m., Pacific: I missed their lowering the alert back to Green/Normal, but it has just gone up to yellow again.

Per the current GVP activity bulletin:

The Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) reported that increased seismicity, characterized by several earthquakes with magnitudes over 1, began at Grímsvötn during the afternoon of 2 August and continued through the afternoon of 3 August. The largest event was a M 3.6 detected at 1424. IMO raised the Aviation Color Code to Yellow.

December 12, 2021, 4:40 a.m., Pacific: The IMO only set Grimsvotn at Orange for one day and then lowered the alert back to Yellow, as there was no more unusual seismicity.

I’ve been waiting, but thus far there are no more updates from them. Will keep this post pinned, though, since there have been longer delays than this between outburst floods and eruptions here.

December 6, 2021, 2:09 p.m., Pacific: After M3.6 and M2.3 quakes early today, IMO reports, they followed policy and moved Grimsvotn to Aviation Code Orange.

There is no mention of volcanic tremor or other signs of imminent eruption. Yet.

Over the werkend, they did an overflight and saw a new cauldron on the glacier:

Image by IMO with this note via Google Translate: “In a sightseeing flight yesterday, a new sigketill was seen southeast of Grímsfjall and is located in a similar area and the waterway runs from Grímsvötn under the glacier. Scientists will look at measurements and data that can give clues as to how and when the boiler was formed, but it is expected that changes may occur in the geothermal system at Grímsvötn after the events of the last few days. Weather has hampered sightseeing flights today, but progress will continue to be closely monitored at Grímsvötn and Gígjukvísl.”

December 3, 2021, 11:09 p.m., Pacific: At around noon on the 1st, IMO reported (Icelandic) that the flood water had begun.

Grimsvotn sleeps.

However, here is part of what they wrote about that yesterday via browser translator, with a little editing of the volcano’s name:

As mentioned earlier, there are examples of volcanic eruptions in Grimsvotn after water runs from there. Sudden pressure relief is believed to be due to lowering water levels triggering eruptions. The last scenario became such in 2004 and before that in 1934 and 1922. In 2004, traces of the start of the race were seen on October 28th and an eruption began about three days later, or at the end of the day on November 1. In the days ahead, tremors in Grimsvotn were a sign that a volcanic eruption was coming. However, no such tremors have been measured at present.

The last time he gazed in Grimsvotn in 2011 had run out of Grimsvotn over six months before. Since 2011, it has run a total of 6 times from Grimsvotn without a volcanic eruption.

The eruption has been carried out every five to ten years from Grimsvotn, and scientists agree that measurements show that conditions are in such a way that Grimsvotn is ready to erupt. However, there is nothing to assert that volcanic eruptions will be intercourse with this gel, and seismic activity in Grimsvotn needs to be closely monitored, which could provide evidence that an eruption is imminent.

So it’s a waiting game. By the way, that was a VEI 4 eruption in 2011.

November 28, 3:41 p.m., Pacific: Still waiting — this was tweeted within the hour:

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November 26, 2021, 11:19 a.m., Pacific: It’s coming.

Here is the Google Translate version of the Icelandic Met Office update.

March 31, 2021: Grimsvotn, which is not near the active eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula, still slumbers. Its name, by the way, means “gray water.”

August 15, 2020, 9:11 a.m., Pacific: Good news, but I’ll keep the post pinned for a while, just in case.

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August 14, 2020, 6:02 p.m., Pacific: An outburst flood may be starting, but they can’t verify it yet. This tweet thread gives the gist, but the Met Office also has the news posted on its Icelandic site.

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Original post:

We’re stepping outside the Decade Volcano series today to look at the most active volcano in Iceland.

Why?

For two reasons:

  1. To the delight of tabloids everywhere, risk assessment experts at Deutsche Bank reportedly told their clients last week that there is a one-in-three chance of a major catastrophe in the 2020s.Their “doomsday list” includes the possibility of a very large volcanic eruption, on the scale of Mount Tambora in 1815 (which gave us the “Year Without a Summer” and led to the worst famine experienced in Europe and North America in a century: it took an estimated 49,000 lives across the globe [Brown et al.; Oppenheimer]). That’s just what we don’t need to hear right now.
  2. Iceland’s Grimsvotn Volcano is not anywhere close to being another Tambora, but it’s in the news, we’re all on edge because of the tightrope that COVID-19 has us all walking, and memories of major air traffic disruptions from Icelandic eruptions in 2010 (Eyjafjallajokull) and 2011 (Grimsvotn) are fresh.

It’s very easy to jump to gloom-and-doom conclusions right now.

This is therefore a good time to point out that there is no connection between the Deutsche Bank report, which was based on unrelated research, and the interesting news about likely activity at Grimsvotn in coming days and weeks.

Here’s what’s happening at Grimsvotn, in a nutshell — volcanologists noted signs earlier this month that magma is close to the surface in the same part of the caldera that hosted eruptions in 2011 (VEI 4) and 2004 (VEI 3).

What a VEI 4 eruption can look like. For comparison, Tambora’s 1815 blast was VEI 7.

However, most of that caldera sits under some 700 feet of glacial ice, so the most likely outcome of all this extra heat is a glacial flood.

These are awesome!

A look at the current webcam view, looking across the river at glacier-covered Grimsvotn (just a few dark rocky peaks rising above the ice sheet), might lead you to believe that such a flood is already underway.

Not so, at least at the time of writing (June 18th; will update if something happens between now and Sunday morning).

That’s an ordinary river flowing across a vast plain of deposits left by previous jokulhlaups.

This is the sort of thing they expect from Grimsvotn some time soon:

I couldn’t find online video from Grimsvotn. This glacial outburst flood happened at Eyjafjallajokull in April 2010.

You get these wherever fire and ice meet, but the floods in Iceland are so dramatic that volcanologists around the world use the Icelandic term for this phenomenon: jokulhlaup.

Now, research has shown that Grimsvotn does sometimes erupt when its magma chamber is highly pressurized (as it probably is now) and the heavy weight of water in the subglacial caldera suddenly disappears in a jokulhlaup.

But that BOOM! doesn’t always happen. Volcanoes are very complex systems, especially in Iceland.

Here’s the bottom line, per the experts at the Met Office:

  • A glacial outburst flood at Grimsvotn will probably happen soon.
  • There may be an eruption, too, but it’s not likely to be as intense as the one in 2011.

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This will be exciting to watch, and it potentially could have some human repercussions, but it’s not going to be the end of the world.

By the way, many of us outsiders find the names of Iceland volcanoes challenging.

I did a post about that, a while back — it includes some spectacular guest videos, including one that brings you up close and personal with Grimsvotn.

Location:

64.416° N, 17.316° W, in Austur-Skaftafellssysla/Vestur-Skaftafellssysla, Iceland. The GVP Volcano Number is 373010.

Nearby Population:

Per the Global Volcanism Program:

  • Within 5 km (3 miles): 0
  • Within 10 km (6 miles): 0
  • Within 30 km (19 miles): 0
  • Within 100 km (62 miles): 1,736

Current Status:

Normal, Aviation Code Green.

Eruptions:

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