A country with ice in its name: now watching its ice disappear
Climate change is reshaping Iceland's landscapes. What does it mean for those closest to the ice?
It's an empty valley, where a glacier used to be
At dusk in the rural Kjós glacial valley, three mosquitoes land in local insect enthusiast Björn Hjaltason’s trap. For a country once thought too cold, too windy, and too glacial for mosquitos to thrive, Iceland recorded its first mosquito in October.
They are a tiny, winged warning sign in Iceland, that the climate is warming rapidly. Studies published by the Communications Earth & environment show that the Arctic Region is warming at four times the rate of the rest of the planet, and The World Weather Attribution reports that Iceland has experienced record heat this year.
This is contributing to noticeable changes to Iceland's landscape that people can see and feel. Glacier operations manager, Francesco Li Vigni, has walked the Falljökull glacier nearly everyday for 10 years. Li Vigni says he notices its movement throughout the seasons. Particularly, that it is "losing a lot of volume and tone.”
He notes that the changes are more visible in the summer. “We start holding our breath, waiting for the summer to be gone”.
Iceland's glaciers are shrinking and melting at an alarming rate. Glaciers in many regions will not survive the 21st century if they keep melting at the current rate, potentially jeopardising millions of people living downstream, according to a United Nations climate expert.
As the warnings grow, so does the way people respond to Iceland’s changing landscape.
A last chance landscape
In the parking lot at the Falljökull glacier, buses unload tourists with phones already raised. For some, the desire to travel too Iceland is motivated by ideas of ‘last-chance tourism’ (LCT). LCT research explores a trend where tourists are travelling to destinations that are threatened by environmental changes. To see them before they are gone. It signals a growing awareness of the fragility of nature.
Li Vigni says, “The impression is that the glacier is really suffering a lot. It's bleeding water from any crack, any crevice,” he says. For the first time in 10 years he says he can see that Falljökull is run by crevices, and is not flat anymore.
“Its easy terrain has now become quite advanced in order to navigate through”.
“All it really takes for us to not be able to walk on these glaciers anymore is one big crevasse”.
He says losing Falljökull is unimaginable, it is a glacier that he visits nearly every day. His love for glaciers inspired him to move from his hometown in Palermo, Italy, so he could share his passion each day.
“Seeing glaciers for the first time was just love at first sight. It was like going to a distant world that I only read in books or see in movies.”
He describes glaciers as “living bodies, moving, changing, and shaping the nature around,” and says that if they continue to disappear, he fears that the story will become one of an—
“empty valley where a glacier used to be.”
A study shared by the Icelandic Meteorological Office states that during this 23-year period, Iceland’s glaciers thinned by approximately 93 cm per year, equivalent to 8.3 billion tons of ice.
Li Vigni, like many Icelandic's, is no stranger to the loss of grieving the landscape. When he arrived in Iceland there were landscapes that “now are just something [he’s] able to show to [his] friends only in photos.”
He has also witnessed the ability for nature to redirect itself. In 2018 at the Sólheimajökull glacier, a river was cutting the glacier away from the mainland. “Then that river actually changed direction somehow and this disappeared,” he says. Li Vigni has hope that these crevices at Falljökull may also stabilise.
Can glaciers renew?
Glacier guide, Stefan Hegli, also believes in nature's ability to “renew the glaciers.” But he says they may not be renewed within our lifetimes.
Iceland's climate is heating rapidly but for Hegli he “would like it to be warmer in Iceland” so that he can “wear a T-shirt maybe three days in summer instead of just two days.”
He believes that there are threats to the existence of glaciers, but says they don't really affect him.
He says, “I don't really care. I think we can lose a lot more glaciers. It would be no problem.”
“It's so far ahead in the future that it's kind of hard to worry about it,” Hegli says. “There's going to be another 100 or 200 years.”
In remembrance of our ice
Dominic Boyer is a researcher on the Board of Governors of the Rice Sustainability Institute.
“It's not happening 200 years from now, it's happening today,” Boyer says “It's sort of delusional, I think, for people to think that this is something that has a positive consequence.
Boyer has been doing research on Iceland as an anthropologist for the past 15 years.
His developed a passion for the country and it’s climate has led him to create the first ever glacier memorial in honor of Iceland’s first named glacier that disappeared because of climate change.
"We decided that it was an important loss, not only to Iceland, but really to the world,” he says. “It’s a letter to the future generations about the urgency of the loss of these glaciers.”
In 2013, Boyer began working on this project by asking himself the question: “How do Icelanders feel about the loss of ice in their country?”
According to a study conducted by Rúv, 70% of Icelanders are avidly concerned about global warming and their environment, with women making up the majority.
The memorial plaque aims to commemorate 2017's lost glacier, Okjökull. Boyer saw this as an opportunity to draw people’s attention to the loss of Iceland's cryospheric.
“Funerals are not really for dead people, right? They’re an important ritual for the living who are trying to process loss,” he says. “It’s as much about remembering the glaciers as it is about creating community among people who really think that the loss of a glacier is a real loss.”
A study conducted by the Earth Organization claims that 68% of the world's glaciers are set to disappear, with half of the loss expected to happen in the next 30 years.
With temperatures continuing to rise in Iceland, the possibility for these glaciers to regenerate significantly is very unlikely.
“This is something that could be healed. But it won't happen until you begin to push down the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.”
The Carbfix Project in Iceland is a mission dedicated to reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere through capturing it from power plants, injecting it into the ground, and turning it to stone in an attempt to slow down climate change.
Iceland is a global leader in geothermal energy. 25% of the country's total electricity production is made up of geothermal power facilities.
Geothermal energy in Iceland is produced by tapping naturally heated water and steam from underground reservoirs. These hot fluids are brought to the surface to generate electricity and provide heating for homes and businesses.
Boyer explains that glaciers are not melting purely because of the behaviour of Icelanders.
“I’m speaking to you from Houston, Texas, the epicenter of the oil and gas industry in the Western Hemisphere, and it’s that industry that is causing the accelerating carbon emissions.”
“Moving towards cleaner forms of energy on a global basis would make a huge difference,” Boyer says. “And probably is the thing that's most within our control.”
When Loss Isn’t Just Ice
For some, the loss of glaciers is not only a measurement in the kilometres of ice gone, but in what disappears with it. Glaciologist and geographer, Dr. M Jackson says “I am friends with glaciers, I know glaciers, I mourn glaciers, I have emotional connectivity to glaciers, and I saw that duality in many people that I worked with” she says.
Jackson speaks on behalf of a landscape that is in distress. As a science communicator she shares her research at Universities and events such as National Geographic Explorers Festival, TED. Her studies revolve around understanding the ice, the conditions, and what it means to glacial communities.
“We tend to have a single story of ice that all ice does is melt, I'm looking forward to the day when I walk into a room and people no longer joke that as a glaciologist, I'm going to be a historian”.
I want to bring meaning to why a quiet Icelandic man would knock on my door and take me several hours to his favorite place on the south coast in freezing temperatures to explain to me what he was fighting for—what to him was at stake as we hurdle forward into an unknown, warming future”
Jackson lived near the fishing village of Höfn, Southeast Iceland, to document the complex relationship between people and ice. During this experience she wrote a book, titled ‘The Secret Life Of Glaciers’. She says she has observed the impact of climate change, such as the receding glaciers that are causing land to rise, known as isostatic rebound.
“It’s changing coastlines,” she says.
Her research points out that Icelanders' traditions and livelihoods are intertwined with the existence of glaciers. She says, “people today, especially on the South Coast, are living in an economy shaped by ice, by tourism, to see before they're gone.” “People are fishing in waters that are controlled by glaciers, by sediment discharge.”
Jackson's research finds that glacial loss is not just about disappearing ice, it's about profound changes to human stories, economies, and cultures, emphasising the interconnectedness of people and ice.
“Glaciers tamed down volcanic activity. Islanders were able to live in valleys and coastlines and landscapes that have been shaped by glaciers”.
She spoke with hundreds of local Icelanders to listen to their stories, with some viewing glaciers as a living entity or a presence of their own.
“We say it's okay to lose our ice. That's a scary thing for me,” she says. “I want us to begin changing how we talk about glaciers, to be inclusive in all of these different ways. People understand them, interact with them, love them, and need them.”
“Now we need to convince people, and by people, I mean individuals and corporations and nation states.” Glaciers “need all of us on their side. I think it's possible. I hope it happens in my lifetime.”
Before It’s Gone
While the first recorded mosquitoes in Iceland are small, it signals that the country’s climate is warming up enough for insects usually found in warmer places to start living here. It beckons the question: What will Iceland look like before today’s tourists return in 20 years, if they return at all?
For glacier guide Li Vigni, today’s visitors still get to meet something rare. Li Vigni says watching travellers' step onto the ice for the first time is powerful because “we're basically fulfilling our dream.”
For him, there is nothing like a glacier. Its beauty is fragile, and once it disappears, it cannot be replaced.
A video of Iceland’s landscape with comments from Dominic Boyer about what we risk losing.
