Environmental Impacts of an Icelandic Volcanic Erupton in the UK

the fertility of the soil will be increased due to volcanic ash landing on the earths surface. this will be a postive effect for the UK's agriculture and crops as they are main source of uncome and go towards 0.065% of the GDP produced.

it is known that the actual dust particles from ash and tephra have no impact of a humans health but if the particles collect on rooftops of buildings it could cause the roves to collapse therefore leading to the possibility of death. although no evidence has been found to suggest that there is any long term health impacts due to this.

the actual eruption and explosion itself can effect the physical landscape due to secondary features occuring like landslides which can wipe away half the volcano. another feature could be a side explosion which would instantly change the earths landscape. although a change in the landscape wont have a massive impact in iceland it will have a massive impact on UKs environment.

volcanic eruptions destroy wildlife directly via features such as pyriclastic flows, lava flows, tephra falls etc, but flows will not reach the UK so that is no problem towards our environment. also plants are destroyed over a wide area after an eruption but because of the soils fertility after an eruption they will grow back quickly. yet again, i very doubt this will effect the UK very mych as the ash and tephra will be diluted the further it travels.

widespread ash from volcanic eruptions increases the earths albedo effect, which therfore causes the temperature of the troposhpere to cool but increases the temperature of the stratosphere. this will lead to an overall change to the earths climate.

the last time mount eyjafjallajokull erupted was in 1823 and it lasted 13 months. it lowered temperatures throughout europe and north american for the next 4 years and iceland lost half of its cattle and three quarters of its sheep because of the poisonous gases from the eruption.


J. Freeman

Effects that the eruptions had/ and could have on countries worldwide..

the last eruption caused massive disruptions in air travel all over europe, causing many controversial discussions on where to shut airports down. Air travel was completely shut down in UK, Denmark and Sweden.

according the international air transport association, the eruption in 2010 caused the airline industry to lose out on £1.1 billion, this number will only get bigger with the next predicted eruption.

the airport operators association estimated that airports lost £80 million over the 6 and a half days.

the ash also affected many social, cultural and sporting events across europe. including the funeral of polish president lech kaczynski on the 18th of april.

coontroversially however there some environmental advantages from the eruption. there was an estimated saving of around 1.3 to 2.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.


E.Brearly

Volcanism

Iceland contains many active volcanoes due to where it sits on the mid atlantic ridge making it
highly hazardous, it is at this place the eurasian and north american plate drift apart.

Due to the mid atlantic ridge many of the atlantic oceans islands were created such as the canary islands and bermuda with iceland being the largest island on the ridge.