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The loss of an Icelandic glacier has been marked with a funeral service.
The Okjökull glacier, in western Iceland, is the country’s first to be lost, with scientists blaming global warming – and warning that others could follow.
Okjökull was stripped of its glacier status in 2014 after shrinking from 16sq km (6.2 square miles) to a mere 0.7sq km (0.2 square miles) in 2012.
Plaque
Around 100 people – including Iceland’s prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir – walked up the mountain for the ceremony commemorating the glacier, marking the barren spot with a plaque titled ‘A letter to the future’.
The plaque says: “In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”
“I hope this ceremony will be an inspiration not only to us here in Iceland but also for the rest of the world, because what we are seeing here is just one face of the climate crisis,” Jakobsdóttir said.
