Iceland Simply Held a Funeral For The First Glacier Killed by Local weather Change

In 1901, a geological map of Iceland’s Central Highlands depicted the Okjökull glacier as a big swathe of ice spanning 38 sq. kilometres. By 1945 it had shrunk to only 5 sq. kilometres. Not lengthy after 2005, it was all however gone.

In 2014, Okjökull misplaced its glacier standing; now, it is only a protect volcano with no glacial cowl in any respect.

Sadly, that is very doubtless the direct results of local weather change, and except issues change, this won’t be the final glacier to have this destiny.

A group of researchers and documentary makers have now highlighted this loss – in addition to the losses to return – by making a memorial for the misplaced Okjökull glacier (lately referred to easily as Okay, having misplaced the -jökull or “glacier” a part of its identify).

On Sunday 18 August, Iceland held a ceremony to formally mark the glacier’s passing and set up a memorial plaque. The ‘funeral’ was attended by the researchers who initiated the venture, together with Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir and former United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.

“I hope this ceremony can be an inspiration not solely to us right here in Iceland but in addition for the remainder of the world, as a result of what we’re seeing right here is only one face of the local weather disaster,” Jakobsdottir advised AFP.

The glacier was even issued a loss of life certificates, in line with AP.

Andri Snaer Magnason, the creator of the memorial, isn’t mincing phrases within the dedication on the plaque.

“Okay is the primary Icelandic glacier to lose its standing as a glacier.

Within the subsequent 200 years all our glaciers are anticipated to comply with the identical path.

This monument is to acknowledge that we all know what is occurring and what must be performed

Solely you already know if we did it.”

Together with this passage, the memorial additionally contains the quantity 415ppm CO2: the report degree of carbon dioxide in our ambiance reached in Could this 12 months, the primary time this has occurred in human historical past.

(Rice College)

“This would be the first monument to a glacier misplaced to local weather change wherever on this planet,” says anthropologist Cymene Howe from Rice College.

“By marking Okay’s passing, we hope to attract consideration to what’s being misplaced as Earth’s glaciers expire. These our bodies of ice are the most important freshwater reserves on the planet and frozen inside them are histories of the ambiance. They’re additionally usually vital cultural kinds which are filled with significance.”

Many glaciers, in Iceland and elsewhere on the planet, are shedding an enormous quantity of ice to a warming local weather. With Asia’s mountain glaciers quickly melting and depleting the area’s individuals of valuable water sources, and with Antarctica alone shedding 252 billion tons of ice yearly, the onus is on us to do one thing.

“One in all our Icelandic colleagues put it very properly when he mentioned, ‘Memorials are usually not for the useless; they’re for the dwelling,'” Howe mentioned.

“With this memorial, we wish to underscore that it’s as much as us, the dwelling, to collectively reply to the speedy lack of glaciers and the continued impacts of local weather change. For Okay glacier it’s already too late; it’s now what scientists name ‘useless ice.'”

A model of this text was first revealed in July 2019; up to date to incorporate particulars concerning the memorial ceremony.