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- 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.
- In Iceland, people gathered to commemorate the loss of the glacier Okjokull, which was officially declared dead in 2014 at the age of 700.
Glacier
- A glacier is defined as a persistent mass of compacted ice that accumulates more mass each winter than it loses through summer melt and moves constantly under its own weight. When this ceases to be the case, the remains are known as “dead ice”.
- According to a study published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), nearly half of the world’s heritage sites could lose their glaciers by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate.
- Okjokull, also called OK (jokull is Icelandic name for “glacier”), was part of the Langjökull group.
- The glacier was officially declared dead
- Reduced to a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
- The people attending the ceremony will walk up the volcano northeast of the capital Reykjavik to lay a plaque which carries a letter to the future.
- The plaque is also labelled “415 ppm CO2”, referring to the record level of carbon dioxide measured in the atmosphere in May 2018.
- An ice-free Iceland represents more than just an identity crisis for Icelanders.
- If global leaders don’t take action to slow rising temperatures, the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet alone could raise sea-levels more than five feet in the next 200 years.
- Two fast-melting glaciers in Antarctica are holding back enough sea ice to flood oceans with another 11 feet of water.
First Monument in Memory of a Glacier
- Iceland honours the passing of Okjokull, its first glacier lost to climate change. A bronze plaque was unveiled in a ceremony to mark Okjokull — which translates to “Ok glacier” — in the western Iceland.
- It will be the first monument to a glacier lost to climate change anywhere in the world.
BASICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
- Climate change’ as a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods. The major characteristics of climate change include rise in average global temperature, ice cap melting, changes in precipitation, and increase in ocean temperature leading to sea level rise.
Impact
- Agriculture
- fisheries and Aquaculture
- Demography
- Glacier
- Weather
- Human Health
- Sea Level Rise
- Climate change is a global phenomenon that we have to address in a spirit of cooperation taking into account the historical responsibilities and capabilities of countries.
- The direct fallout of this environmental decline will be borne by the poor and the already deprived. Therefore each action in this context must be seen from the perspective of the most underprivileged. The entire global community has to work towards this issue.
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