Europe

The first graveyard of glaciers reveals the existential threat of melting ice

Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon in southeastern Iceland.

Coinciding with this powerful and symbolic monument to the ravages of climate change, the ceremony on August 17 also saw the publication of a list of 15 extinct and endangered glaciers drawn up by Rice University in Texas, the driving force behind the entire project.

According to scientists, global warming has caused thousands of glaciers to disappear around the world since 2000. At least half of these glaciers are expected to be lost by 2100.

Researchers from Rice University in Houston, the Icelandic Meteorological Office, geologists, glaciologists and government officials attended the ceremony ahead of what will be the International Year of Glacier Preservation in 2025.

The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO), and the World Meteorological Agency (WMO), were some of the many co-organizers of the event held in Iceland.

The tombstones, a moving memory

The glacier cemetery consists of 15 tombstones carved from ice by Icelandic sculptor Ottó Magnússon.

“We’ve never needed a glacier graveyard before,” says Cymene Howe of Rice University. “We do now. And while these tombstones will melt away — like their glacial counterparts — we hope the ceremony and the frozen tombstones will serve as poignant reminders that the world’s glaciers are doomed to the same fate if action is not taken quickly.”

The gravestones were placed in a field by the sea on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula, next to Reykjavík, with a splendid view of the Snæfellsjökull glacier across Faxaflói Bay.

Scholars of world literature know the Snæfellsjökull glacier as the entry and embarkation point of the protagonists of Jules Verne’s classic science fiction novel Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Although Snæfellsjökull glacier has lost more than half its size since the late 19th century, many glaciers are in worse shape.

Among those listed as “missing” are the Pizol glacier in Switzerland (2019), the Sarenne glacier in France (2023), the Anderson glacier in the United States (2015) and the Martial Sur glacier in Argentina (2018).

Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon in southeastern Iceland.

More will follow

Five years ago, the untimely death of Iceland’s Ok Glacier was commemorated at a ceremony attended by Iceland’s then Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir and former Irish President Mary Robinson.

“As this glacier has its name and its fame, we opted for another Icelandic glacier for the first entry on the list,” one of the organizers, glaciologist Hrafnhildur Hannesdóttir of the Icelandic Meteorological Office, told the UN Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC).

“Many more are likely to follow, as there is no sign that CO2 emissions are declining.”

Iceland has already lost 70 of its 400 glaciers. Some of them, like the next candidate for extinction, Hofsjökull East, are actually very small. “It is relatively low and flat and will not survive for long,” says Hannesdóttir.

Rising sea levels

According to Icelandic glaciologist Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson, in an interview with UNRIC, if all of Iceland’s glaciers were to disappear, the meltwater would cause a one centimetre rise in global sea level, almost as much as all the glaciers in the Himalayas.

Himalayan glaciers cover some 40,000 square kilometres. However, Vatnajökull, which is the largest glacier in Iceland – and indeed in Europe – south of the Arctic Circle, alone covers 7,700 km2.

For various reasons, “the big one,” as he is known, is expected to survive for another three centuries.

Langjökull, the country’s second largest glacier, is in greater danger, however, not least because it is much lower. Scientists predict that only 10 to 20 percent of its mass will remain by 2100.

A mountain glacier in Kargil, India, is shrinking due to rising temperatures and decreasing snowfall.

© UNICEF/Srikanth Kolari

A mountain glacier in Kargil, India, is shrinking due to rising temperatures and decreasing snowfall.

The water tower of Asia

The melting of Himalayan glaciers attracts far more attention than the fate of Iceland’s, for understandable reasons.

The glaciated mountains of the Hindu-Kush-Himalaya region have been called the “Water Tower of Asia” as they feed some of the Earth’s greatest rivers, including the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra and Yangtze, all of which rise there in what is a relatively small area.

In Thorsteinsson’s words, they are considered “a lifeline for hundreds of millions, if not billions of people.” They have already lost 40% of their volume since the end of the 19th century.

It is expected that 75% will have been lost by the end of this century.

“But the melting of the ice does not mean that 2 or 3 billion people in China and India will die of thirst. The Ganges, for example, has its source in a small glacier, the Gangotri. Rain and snow will continue to fall and groundwater and the monsoon will feed all these great rivers,” he told UNRIC.

Her colleague Hrafnhildur Hannesdóttir points out that the melting ice has led to an increased risk of flooding and landslides, with frequent and high death tolls.

“We need to take a global view, not focus on just one thing at a time, and we must not forget the rising sea level, which will affect even more people.”

Crucial to the history of humanity

There is also an important cultural dimension: “All these glaciers are wrapped up in our lives,” says Dominic Boyer of Rice University.

“They belong to the time we spent together, not to abstract future losses, but to real losses that you can and will feel with all your senses.”

In fact, glaciers are also part of Iceland’s identity. The national flag bears a red cross outlined in white with a blue body.

The cross represents Christianity, the red represents the fire of volcanoes, the blue represents the sky and the sea, and the white represents ice and snow.

The silver lining is that the white might not disappear, even if the glaciers do.

The magnificent Snæfellsjökull may lose its status as a glacier, but its white cap could remain. “In fact, the glacial ice on the mountain is relatively thin and its colour is greyish and not very pretty,” explains Thorsteinsson.

“But it will not stop snowing, and in fact it is the snow cap that we admire most from afar and that all photographers adore.”

International year

The General Assembly The UN has declared 2025 the International Year for the Preservation of Glaciers and proclaimed March 21 of each year as World Glacier Day.

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