The impacts of a Laki-like eruption on the present Swedish society

In this study, we analyse and discuss the possible impacts on the Swedish society of a volcanic eruption on Iceland, emitting ash particles and large quantities of sulphur dioxide. A scenario was developed, based on the historical Laki eruption of 1783–1784, to describe the content of a potential sulphur fog over time in Sweden. Due to its high complexity and the many uncertainties in the underpinning scientific data, the scenario was developed using a cross-disciplinary approach incorporating experts from different scientific fields. An analysis of the impacts of the hazard on human health, environment and technical equipment was then performed and, finally, representatives from national authorities assessed the overall societal challenges in responding to the consequences of a massive volcanic eruption. The analysis shows that it is the peak concentrations of sulphur dioxide and sulphuric acid rather than the longer periods of moderate concentrations that contribute most to the negative consequences for human health and environment. Altogether, three societal challenges were identified: the ability to compile and disseminate relevant information fast enough, to perform continuous measurements of concentrations of different substances in affected areas and to meet the large demand for medical care.     

Origin of salt giants in abyssal serpentinite systems

International Journal of Earth Sciences - Worldwide marine salt deposits ranging over the entire geological record are generally considered climate-related evaporites, derived from the...     

High‐resolution simulations and visualization of protoplanetary disks: structure of the flow in the vicinity of a massive planet

A problem of mass flow in the immediate vicinity of a planet embedded in a protoplanetary disk is studied numerically in two dimensions. Large differences in temporal and spatial scales involved suggest that a specialized discretization method for solution of hydrodynamical equations may offer great savings in computational resources, and can make extensive parameter studies feasible. Preliminary results obtained with help of Adaptive Mesh Refinement technique and high‐order explicit Eulerian solver are presented. This combination of numerical techniques appears to be an excellent tool which allows for direct simulations of mass flow in vicinity of the accretor at moderate computational cost. The present communication is focused on the structure of the outer part of the circumplanetary disk. We employ the multifluid option to the hydrodynamical solver to prove that the circumplanetary disk is composed of the gas transfered into it from the edges of the gap.