World
The Icelandic Met Office has lowered its aviation warning from red to orange near the Bardarbunga volcano, which saw an eruption begin overnight. The BBC writes:
The new alert, the second-highest, means that aviation authorities can now decide if planes may travel over the volcano's airspace. Scientists said a fissure eruption 1km (0.6 miles) long started in a lava field north of the Vatnajokull glacier.
The volcano has been hit by several recent tremors. The Icelandic Met Office confirmed to the BBC that since no ash was detected in emissions from the volcano's eruption, it was now possible to downgrade the earlier alert level.
Civil protection officials said Icelandic Air Traffic Control had closed the airspace above the eruption up to a height of 5,000ft (1,500m), but now some aircraft will be able to pass over the volcano if aviation authorities give airliners the go-ahead.
The fissure eruption took place between Dyngjujokull Glacier and the Askja caldera, according to a statement from the Department of Civil Protection.
Geologist Andy Hooper penned a blog in The Guardian explaining why the chances of a huge eruption of the Bárðarbunga volcano in Iceland and massive disruption of air travel are low:
A small subglacial eruption is thought to have occurred on 23 August, causing the alert to be elevated temporarily to red, but the subsequent lack of any signs of melted ice revealed this to be a false alarm.
While there is a remote possibility of a huge eruption, which would have impacts far beyond Iceland, this is unlikely, and we should also not see any repeat of the massive airspace closure in Europe in 2010, the biggest since the second world war, following the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano.
The locations of earthquakes and the movement of GPS instruments installed around Bárðarbunga show that a vertical sheet of magma has been growing in a northeasterly direction at several kilometres depth, and has now reached well beyond the ice cap.
