This article on the new government IT strategy has an interesting entry:

the Register

"The Cabinet Office has told suppliers involved in the programme that it will retain responsibility for procurement, ICT capability, re-use and innovation, but that six other departments will now take more prominent roles. Their responsibilities will be as follows:

- Department of Health – information strategies and data standards.

- HM Revenue and Customs – desktop and devices strategy, reference architecture and technical standards.

- Ministry of Defence (MoD) – networks, security and green issues.

- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – channels, citizen engagement and agile development.

- Home Office – open source, social media and document standards.

- Ministry of Justice – data centre consolidation, cloud and the applications store.

Why would the MOD be tasked with "green issues"?

I'm delighted to see Dr North agrees with me about ash clouds.
I can't remember the exact weather conditions during last year's episode but I'm certain there wasn't a mini-hurricane rampaging around the north of Scotland and the Pentland Firth. I fail to see how any concentration of ash could have survived as a concentration in those weather conditions.
It appears that since last year the authorities have invented the term "red zone" so I suppose that is some sort of progress. Why they've done nothing else of any value beats me. And why they consider it is more important to send their only available suitable aircraft off to some scientific work in the Sahara than properly to investigate the area directly under their jurisdiction is equally puzzling.
Combining this with their implied (at least) criticism of Walsh and O'Leary for daring to prove them wrong carrying out their own research and I am, not for the first time, reminded of HL Mencken's dictum:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Confirmation of Wille Walsh's comments on R4

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8534970/Iceland-volcano-BA-test-flight-found-nothing.html

Re volcanic ash: I heard Wille Walsh (BA as was) on R4 this morning just before 8am confirming Ryanair's findings from yesterday... there was nothing (or next to nothing) up there yesterday morning.

Their flight was in regular contact with ATC to ensure they were flying through the "red" zone at the various altitudes so we can rule out the Phil Hammond excuse that they were in the wrong place.

You can't make this up

Decisions on whether to fly are based on forecasts from the Met Office's Volcanic Ash Advisory Service, rather than real-life measurements of concentrations.

Although the Met Office has part ownership of a research plane, it is currently being used in Ireland to study 'marine organic particles'.

A dedicated Met Office atmospheric research plane, commissioned after last year's volcanic chaos, is not due to arrive until next month.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1390558/Ash-cloud-2011-Holiday-flights-knife-edge-Met-office-warns-cloud-blanket-Britain.html

Dr North's take on the ash cloud farce

Airline managers are complaining that last year, officials did not do enough to check the actual conditions in the air, instead relying too heavily on computer models showing where the ash was supposed to be. Yet, despite the experience, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is saying that it is "astonishing and unacceptable" that a British aircraft that is supposed to check actual conditions has been unable to fly.

The disruption arises in part from "volatile winds" which are said to be carrying clouds of volcanic ash down from Iceland over the northern British Isles. But those same winds which caused the rough weather yesterday must also have dispersed the ash.

Without real data, however, forecasters are unable to provide accurate information on ash density and particle size, relying instead on weather patterns and computer modelling to give a rough approximation of conditions. And, with no clear guidance as to closure rules, the only significant difference between this year and last is that the weather conditions are more changeable, allowing more favourable estimates of ash dispersion to be made.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/05/model-of-chaos.html

If there's one way to wake Joe Public up to what's going on in the wacky world of CAGW "science", the current Met Office computer model generated disruption to his travel plans might be an effective alarm clock.

I fell off my seat at this one

MP Ann McKechin, Labour's shadow Scottish secretary, said: "It is good that the lessons from last year's widespread disruption caused by ash seem to have been learnt and I'm pleased to see the Scottish Government is taking the appropriate action of convening an emergency committee to deal with this issue."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8534043/Icelandic-volcano-hundreds-forced-to-abandon-plans-as-ash-cloud-forces-more-flight-cancellations.html

Further to BoFA's comment, and from the link given:

Ryanair said it had completed a one-hour ''verification flight'' up to 41,000ft in Scottish airspace this morning.

The aircraft took off from Glasgow Prestwick, flew to Inverness, on to Aberdeen and down to Edinburgh.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the airline said: ''There was no visible volcanic ash cloud or any other presence of volcanic ash and the post-flight inspection revealed no evidence of volcanic ash on the airframe, wings or engines.

If I recall correctly, last year's hysteria was similarly based on computer model outputs over empirical observation. It looks like this one is going to be similar, despite promises that things had changed.

Back to the 15th Century!

The MET office runs the model which predicts where the volcanic ash cloulds should be, wonder if they are using the same model as their AGW model.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/8533359/Ryanair-flies-plane-through-Icelandic-volcano-ash-cloud.html

''The absence of any volcanic ash in the atmosphere supports Ryanair's stated view that there is no safety threat to aircraft in this mythical 'red zone', which is another misguided invention by the UK Met Office and the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority).