"Higher global temperatures are threatening glaciers, which cover 11 percent of Iceland and are prominent tourist attractions."
"They arrived on Sunday in parkas and ski hats, hiking across the rocky terrain where Iceland’s Okjokull glacier once flourished. Today it is a watery grave, which scientists and politicians say is the site of the nation’s first glacier lost to climate change.
A lake of melted ice now dominates the landscape amid a barren stretch of stone and dirt. The site was renamed to Ok after “jokull,” meaning “glacier” in Icelandic, was dropped.
In 2014, Oddur Sigurosson, one of the country’s leading glaciologists, declared Okjokull dead, saying the ice was too thin for it to qualify as a glacier. To mark its end, Icelanders unveiled a bronze plaque with a warning: “In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path.”"
Laura M. Holson reports for the New York Times August 19, 2019.
