2019 – Posted in: Daily News – Tags: glaciers

ICELAND’S OKJOKULL GLACIER COMMEMORATED WITH PLAQUE

In Iceland, people will gather to commemorate the loss of the glacier Okjokull, which was officially declared dead in 2014 at the age of 700.

The glacier was officially declared dead by the Icelandic Meteorological Office when it was no longer thick enough to move.
What once was glacier has been reduced to a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
Okjokull is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier.
The plaque is also labelled “415 ppm CO2”, referring to the record level of carbon dioxide measured in the atmosphere last May.
Iceland loses about 11 billion tonnes of ice per year, and scientists fear that all of the island country’s 400-plus glaciers will be gone by 2200.

Important Info

Okjökull was stripped of its glacier status in 2014 by the geologists. According to a 2017 report from the University of Iceland, the 16 square kilometres large Okjökull measured just 0.7 square kilometres by 2012.
According to a study published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in April, if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, nearly half of the world’s heritage sites could lose their glaciers by 2100.
The melting of glaciers is only one outcome of the climate change, and it has the potential to affect food supplies, and displace billions of people as the sea levels rise.

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