There has been an awful lot of debate about the decision to close the airspace over Europe for days during the beginning of the explosive phase at Eyjafjallajökull last spring. Many critics of the closure said that European officials didn't have enough hard data, such as actual ash particulate counts or imagery of the location of ash in the atmosphere. However, much of this type of data was impossible to collect on a meaningful level because the apparatus was not in place for this type of rapid data collection of ash in the skies of Europe.
While it is easy to look back and say what should have happened, it can sometimes be useful as to help us better understand to how to handle the next crisis. It now appears that the EU officials made the right decision to err on the side of caution when it came to the ...
