Losing ice in Iceland

Greenhouse-gas emissions causing rapid glacier loss

Iceland’s more than 300 glaciers are losing approximately 11 billion tons of ice per year due to climate change.

The far-northern country is one of the fastest-warming regions on the planet, warming at a rate of up to four times the average of the entire Northern Hemisphere, according to an article published by The Daily Climate. The annual volume of ice lost by Iceland’s glaciers that is not replaced by new snow is enough to “fill 50 of the world’s largest trucks every minute for the entire year,” the article noted.

“It is among the highest losses on the Earth,” glaciologist Helgi Bjornsson was quoted as saying. Some of Iceland’s glaciers have already disappeared, and others will be gone in a decade or two, Bjornsson said, due to the effects of greenhouse-gas emissions.