Iceland will soon lose its identity
Glaciers occupy a tenth of the island and every single one is melting
From the offices of the fishing operation founded by his family two generations ago, Adalsteinn Ingolfsson has watched the massive Vatnajokull glacier shrink year after year. Rising temperatures have already winnowed the types of fish he can catch. But the wilting ice mass, Iceland’s largest, is a strange new challenge to business.
“The glacier is melting so much that the land is rising from the sea,” said Ingolfsson, the chief executive of Skinney-Thinganes, one of Iceland’s biggest fishing companies. “It’s harder to get our biggest trawlers in and out of the harbour. And if something goes wrong with the weather, the port is closed off completely.”
A warmer climate isn’t affecting just Hofn, where the waning weight of Vatnajokull on the Earth’s crust is draining fjords and shifting underground sediment, twisting the town’s sewer pipes. As temperatures rise across the Arctic nearly faster than any place on the planet, all of Iceland is grappling with the prospect of a future with no ice.
ARCTIC MELTDOWN
Glaciers occupy over a tenth of this famously frigid island near the Arctic Circle. Every single one is melting. So are the massive, centuries-old ice sheets of Greenland and the polar regions. Where other countries face rising seas, Iceland is confronting a rise in land in its southernmost regions, and considers the changing landscape and climate a matter of national urgency.
When Europe suffered recordbreaking heat in July, Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, clocked its highest temperatures ever.
‘WE CAN DO BETTER’
“Climate change is no longer something to be joked about in Iceland or anywhere,” Gudni Johannesson, Iceland’s president, said in an interview, adding that most Icelanders believe human activity plays a role. “We realise the harmful effects of global warming,” he said. “We are taking responsibility to seek practical solutions. But we can do better.”
The country elected an environmentalist, Katrin Jakobsdottir, as prime minister in 2017 on a platform of tackling climate change. Her government is budgeting $55 million (Dh201.9 million) over five years for reforestation, land conservation and carbon-free transport projects to slash greenhouse gas emissions. More will be spent by 2040, when Iceland expects businesses, organisations and individuals to be removing as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they put in.
Businesses are more serious about protecting the environment now and know they have to spend substantial money toward battling the changes. “If they don’t show they’re acting responsibly, they will lose clients,” said Reynir Kristinsson, who runs a non-governmental organisation, Kolvidur. He has this year planted 200,000 native birch trees on 700 acres of volcanic flatland..
Most of Iceland’s volcanic terrain is deforested, and it will take decades for newly planted trees to absorb carbon at a large scale.
Trees are certainly not a fast fix for Iceland’s glaciers, which scientists say now can no longer recover the ice they are losing.
PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
Glacial melting is also expected to oversaturate watersheds in the next century, and scientists predict that they then will dry up, forcing energy producers to adapt. Landsvirkjun, the staterun energy company, which generates three-quarters of Iceland’s
power, is building room for additional water turbines at its dams. It is also building new capacity for wind turbines to operate when the glaciers die.
“From a design perspective, we’re taking into account what will happen in the next 50 to 100 years,” said Oli Gretar Blondal Sveinsson, the executive vice president for research and development. “There will be no glaciers,” he said flatly.