Why Iceland is becoming a glacier graveyard

Iceland’s glaciers are among the fastest-melting ice sheets in the world. Both the sea and land are rising as a result, with consequences for tourism and shipping. Iceland’s glaciers are melting so fast that future generations may wonder how the country got its name. The northern European island nation has lost 70 of its 400 glaciers. In the past 25 years, the total area of Iceland’s ice has shrunk by about a tenth while glacier thickness has dropped by an average of one metre a year, Hrafnhildur Hannesdóttir of the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) tells SWI swissinfo.ch. “The rate of glacial mass loss is among the highest in the world,” Hannesdóttir, the national correspondent for the Swiss-based World Glacier Monitoring Service ( WGMS ), added via email. As the impact of melting ice become increasingly evident, the Nordic nation is preparing for a future with fewer or even no glaciers. Glaciers, local melting and global impacts The World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) ...