The Ash Cloud (Edge Event)

On Wednesday April 14th, on the way to London from JFK, the pilot announced a slight delay into Heathrow in order to avoid the ash cloud coming out of the Icelandic volcano eruption. This was the first time I paid any attention to the subject. That flight must have been one of the last to arrive in Heathrow before airspace was closed. That evening, British television was all over the first debate between the candidates in the national election. But I was glued to the news from Iceland. I had gone to London for the London International Book Fair, which was eerily deserted as nearly everyone except the British and French (who took the train) were unable to get there. The talk in London was about who was stranded in London, and out of London, and the heroics of certain individuals who had braved 20-odd hour trips cars, trains, and ferries to get to London from places like Munich, Rome, Umbria.

Tuesday night April 20th in London, I went to bed at midnight, having a confirmed reservation for a 10:30am return flight, but no idea if the airspace would open up in the morning. It did at 10am, and I was very fortunate to be on one of the first planes out Heathrow (only about 2/3 full) arriving at an empty JFK, which, until Wednesday had been a temporary home to hundreds of stranded travelers who slept on tiny cots, and took showers in two specially outfitted trucks outside. Even as of this writing, if you don't have a confirmed ticket to New York, the first available booking is in two weeks. It is very chaotic and it's not over.

Something is going on here that requires serious thinking. We've had earthquakes before, and we've had plane stoppages, but nothing like the continuing effects of the ash cloud.

Why?

I am reminded of the warning call by Freeman Dyson is his Edge feature "Heretical Thoughts About Science And Society" about the use of modeling with respect to global warming. What the ash cloud models apparently showed had little to do with reality, as there were few, if any, actual measurements. What do the psychologists have to say about the way the decision-makers have acted? What have the behavioral economists learned from this? I am interested in hearing from the earth and atmospheric scientists, the aeronautical engineers, the physicists. What can science bring to the table?

- John Brockman on Edge.org

Fear that modern science will fail us in ways that cannot be foreseen and predicted has rolled in with the ash cloud, but in the taxonomy of news, this was actually closer to the classic 'man stops biting dog' story.

It is the concept of dependable and safe jet travel that is the black swan event here which was almost impossible to predict. Given the repeated disasters in the mid 1950s befalling the de Havilland Comet (the first passenger jet), it would have made little sense at the time to prepare for the regularity of modern travel. Further, anomalous lack of volcanic activity (particularly from Katla in Iceland since 1918 and Vesuvius in Italy since 1944) appears to constitute a second unexpected "tail event" which no scientist appears to have predicted. Ex post, however, it appears to have been put to excellent use as little treasure was diverted to researching and developing 'volcano proof' engine designs that would have given little business advantage in the long and quiet 1954-2009 expansionary period of North Atlantic jet travel.

Happily, recent test flights of today's vulnerable technology intensive jet aircraft have seen little damage in the current plume despite lack of any specific precautions. Contrast this to robust war tested propeller aircraft designs during the simpler and heartier WWII era when volcanic ash destroyed roughly 80 B-25 planes of the battle hardened 340th Bombardment Group fighting in Southern Europe. Even the pair of dramatic "four engine flameouts" seen by KLM 867 over Mt. Redoubt and BA 9 over Mt. Galunggung in 1989 and 1982 respectively proved more nuisance than nemesis to modern jets given the lack of injury (let alone loss of life.) Lastly, the publicized loss of business in the current crisis is undoubtedly a dent in a larger unreported windfall of "negative opportunity costs" pocketed over a half-century of unusually clear skies (when calculated from whatever sophisticated business plans had budgeted for volcanic interruptions.)

In short Eyjafjallajökull has been less the black swan than the hunter who took her. But stay tuned.

- Eric Weinstein on Edge.org