Reykjavík Grapevine - mar 2021, Qupperneq 10

10 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 03— 2021
is very useful for that purpose. That's
why we want to learn as much as we can
from each event. We'd like to be able to
have such exercises every day, but it's
not possible, because nature doesn't
work on that timescale."
Another thing to bear in mind are
the massive timescales we’re dealing
with when it comes to volcanoes.
"The timescales of individual
systems are different,” "orvaldur says.
“Hekla erupts very often. Volcanoes on
the Reykjanes peninsula go into this
stage of unrest and eruption every 800
years or so, and that period can last
some 200 to 400 years. It's episodic.
It's not a constant unrest. You can have
a period of unrest that lasts for a few
months and then it calms down, and
you repeat that over a period of two or
three decades, and then it goes quiet
for 70 or 80 years, and then it picks up
again."
"For us, it's a very long period of
time,” he points out. “For the volcano,
it's an instant. It's on a totally differ-
ent timescale. It's both fascinating and
difficult to grasp, this long timescale.
Especially when volcanoes, when they
actually kick in, then they switch gears
and everything is happening one-two-
three. When the processes kick in,
there are processes happening over
milliseconds to determine if you're
going to have an explosion eruption or
an effusion eruption. This is the chal-
lenge of studying volcanoes."
What’s the worst that
could happen?
Despite assurances from Kristín and
"orvaldur that if an eruption happens,
it will very likely not be a devastating
event, "orvaldur was nonetheless quite
willing to discuss what the worst case
scenario for a Reykjanes eruption could
be.
“In terms of danger to the popu-
lation, let's just make an assumption
that we have an eruption site where
if lava comes up it will flow towards a
populated area,” he says. “In terms of
Reykjanes peninsula, the worst case
scenario is we would get a very strong
fountaining eruption at the very begin-
ning, which would produce lava flows
that would move at very high speeds
downslope, on the order of 30 to 60
kilometres per hour. In that case, if you
look at the peninsula, the distance from
an eruption site to a populated area is
on the order of five to 15 kilometres. The
response time then would be around
one to three hours. If you take an aver-
age eruption, the response time would
be three to ten days or so. But the worst
case scenario I'm describing would be
a very unusual event. However, even
in those cases we would have time to
respond. That's the important thing.
You may not be able to save a lot of your
things, but you would definitely be able
to get away from it."
So we would have plenty of time to
evacuate people from an eruption area
in Reykjanes. But where would these
people go?
"It's very unlikely that a fissure will
open up and cut off all roads,” he says.
“There would always be route out. You
may have to go the long way around
in some cases, and maybe go to Kefla-
vík and that area. Lava is never going
to go there. That would be an erup-
tion of dimensions that we have never
seen in Iceland. Let's say you were in
Vogar or Grindavík, and you get cut
off from going towards Reykjavík, you
can always go towards Keflavík and you
would be safe over there. Of course,
we can't rule out that we would have
a megaeruption on the peninsula, but
that's very, very unlikely. Even then, you
would have boats to get everyone out."
Never fear, Civic
Protection is here
Rögnvaldur Ólafsson, spokesperson for
the Department of Civil Protection and
Emergency Management, is a part of
the team that would be key to these
evacuations. In the same Reykjavík
Newscast where we spoke with Kristín,
Rögnvaldur was optimistic.
"I think we're pretty safe,” he said.
“We have good modelling and we know
what we're dealing with. We know what
kinds of eruptions we can have and
roughly where. All the infrastructure
is designed to withstand these kinds of
quakes. We do not expect buildings to
collapse. You might see some fractures
in some buildings, but total collapse of
buildings is not something we expect to
see. The experience can be unnerving,
because it's not something you can do
anything about and the whole earth is
shaking, but there's basically nothing
to worry about."
To Rögnvaldur, this is all a part of
the job.
"Basically when you break it down,
it's the same situation,” he said. “You
can even compare it to what we do
regarding COVID-19. We're quite used
to dealing with situations like this.
But of course, it's always a challenge
[to have this possible eruption site]
close to the largest populated area in
Iceland. But we haven't seen anything
in the modelling or predictions that
are great cause for concern. Just like
with COVID-19, as soon as we know
something we give that information to
the public. So you don't have to worry
that there's something we're not telling
you."
Fund your scientists!
As the situation is now, Kristín says,
we’re all doing our best with what we
have.
"There's a lot of uncertainty at this
moment,” she told the Newscast. “We
have to follow the data and make sense
of what's happening. We are doing
our best to include the best scientists
to work on this and come up with a
consensus of the most likely scenarios.
But we just have to wait and see."
For his part, "orvaldur believes the
science of volcano prediction will only
get better.
"We have to integrate systems that
are measuring the geophysical side
of things, with petrological measure-
ments, along with volcanological
measurements and data,” he told us. “It
has to be an integrated thing. Remote
sensing might play a very important
role in that, especially when we can
get better at looking at deformation
using satellite based observations. I
think satellite measurements, in the
end, might be the key to reliable erup-
tion predictions, just like they've been
the key to reliable weather forecasts."
One would expect that for a geologi-
cally active island nation like Iceland
that earth scientists would have all the
money they need. When asked if this
was the case, "orvaldur was quite clear.
"Oh, absolutely not. We never get
enough funding,” he told the Grape-
vine. “Of course we want more money!
The truth is, and it's sad to say as it's
true for many other places as well,
science is generally underfunded. We
appreciate the things that we get and
we are generally not complaining too
much, but I think society would benefit
from investing in scientific research in
general because it is the cheapest way
of preventing harmful things that may
affect us."
Surely members of parliament
would want to make sure that volca-
nologists have all the money we need,
right?
"Absolutely,” "orvaldur says. “Earth
sciences in general and volcanology
in particular have been struggling to
get funding over the last five years.
There's many different reasons for
that, and one important part of that
is how they set up who gets funded or
not and another part is that we haven't
looked well enough after our own inter-
ests. There's always two sides to every-
thing. [The current situation] is a good
exercise for us in the response time,
but is also a good reminder for the
community that lives in the Reykjanes
peninsula that they do live on an active
volcano, and you should take that into
account when you're planning things."
All this being the case, perhaps the
current situation will remind those
holding the purse strings that the earth
sciences in Iceland are crucial to our
survival. However the current situa-
tion plays out, that much should be
abundantly clear by now.
"The experience can be
unnerving, because it's
not something you can do
anything about and the
whole earth is shaking,
but there's basically
nothing to worry about."