Coinciding with the powerful and symbolic monument to the ravages of unbridled climate change, the August 17 ceremony also saw the release of the Global Glacier Casualty list of 15 extinct and endangered glaciers by Rice University in Texas – a 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 disappear by 2100.
Researchers from Rice University in Houston, the Icelandic Meteorological Institute, geologists, glaciologists and government leaders attended the ceremony ahead of what will be International Year for the Conservation of Glaciersby 2025.
UNESCOthe UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the UN Weather Service WMOwere among the many co-organizers of the event in Iceland.
Tombstones, a ‘poignant reminder’
The glacier cemetery consists of 15 gravestones carved from the ice by the Icelandic ice sculptor Ottó Magnússon.
“We’ve never needed a glacier cemetery before,” said Cymene Howe of Rice University. “Now we do. And while these gravestones will melt — just like their glacier counterparts — we hope the ceremony and the icy gravestones serve as poignant reminders that the world’s glaciers are doomed to the same fate without swift action.”
The gravestones were placed in a field by the sea on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula, bordering Reykjavík, with a beautiful view of the Snæfellsjökull glacier across Faxaflói Bay.
The Snæfellsjökull glacier is familiar to students of world literature as the entry and exit point for the main characters in 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.
The largest victims listed as “missing” include the Pizol Glacier in Switzerland (2019), the Sarenne Glacier in France (2023), the Anderson Glacier in the US (2015), and the Martial Sur Glacier in Argentina (2018).
More to come
Five years ago, the untimely death of the Ok Glacier in Iceland was commemorated with a ceremony attended by then Prime Minister of Iceland Katrín Jakobsdóttir and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson.
“Because that glacier has a plaque and fame, we chose another Icelandic glacier as the first entry on the list,” one of the organizers, Hrafnhildur Hannesdóttir, a glaciologist at the Icelandic Meteorological Institute, told the UN Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (VNRIC).
“It is likely that many more will follow, as there is no evidence that CO2 emissions will increase.2 “become less.”
Iceland has already lost 70 of its 400 glaciers. Some of them, like the next candidate for extinction, Hofsjökull East, are very small indeed. “It is relatively low and flat and will not survive for long,” Ms Hannesdóttir said.
UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon in southeastern Iceland.
Sea level will rise
If all of Iceland’s glaciers were to disappear, the meltwater would cause a global sea level rise of one centimeter. That is almost as much as the rise of all the glaciers in the Himalayas, Icelandic glaciologist Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson said in an interview with UNRIC.
The glaciers in the Himalayas cover about 40,000 square kilometers. However, Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Iceland – and indeed in Europe – south of the Arctic Circle, covers 7,700 km2.
For various reasons, it is expected that “the great one”, as he is called, will survive for another three centuries.
Iceland’s second-largest glacier, Langjökull, is in greater danger, not least because it is much lower. Scientists predict that by 2100, only 10 to 20 percent of its mass will remain.
Water Tower of Asia
The melting of the Himalayan glaciers attracts much more attention than the fate of the glaciers in Iceland, and understandably so.
The glacier-capped mountains of the Hindu-Kush-Himalaya region are sometimes called the “Water Tower of Asia” because they feed some of the world’s most important rivers, including the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra and Yangtze – all of which rise there in a relatively small area.
They are considered “a lifeline for hundreds of millions, if not billions of people,” Mr Thorsteinsson said, and have lost 40 percent of their volume since the late 19th century.
It is predicted that 75 percent will be lost by the end of this century.
“But its melting does not mean that 2-3 billion people in China and India will die of thirst. The Ganges, for example, originates from a small glacier, the Gangotri. Rain and snow will continue to fall, and groundwater and the monsoon feed all these major rivers,” he told UNRIC.
His colleague Hrafnhildur Hannesdóttir points out that the melting brings with it an increased risk of flooding and mudslides, which often cause many deaths.
“You have to look at the bigger picture, not focus on one thing at a time, and we must not forget about sea level rise, which will affect even more people.”
© UNICEF/Srikanth Kolari
A mountain glacier shrinking due to rising temperatures and less snowfall in Kargil district, India.
Crucial to the story of humanity
There’s also an important cultural dimension: “These are all glaciers that play a role in our lives,” says Dominic Boyer of Rice University.
“They are part of the time we have together, not abstract future losses, but real losses that you can and will feel with all your senses.”
The glaciers are indeed also part of Iceland’s identity. The national flag shows a red cross with a white outline and a blue body.
The cross of course represents Christianity, the red the fire of the volcanoes, the blue the sky and the sea, and the white the ice and snow.
The good news is that the white surface may not disappear even if the glaciers do.
The magnificent Snæfellsjökull may lose its status as a glacier, but its white cap may remain. “The glacier ice on the mountain is actually relatively thin and the color is grayish and not very beautiful,” Thorsteinsson explains.
“But it won’t stop snowing, and it is indeed the snowcap that we most admire from a distance and that all photographers love.”
International year
The UN General Assembly has declared 2025 the International Year for the Conservation of Glaciers and declared March 21 of each year as World Glacier Day.
