the great unwashed are getting quick to boost to the summit of the volcanic mountain Ok in Iceland , where a memorial will be held for Okjökull .
Okjökull ( which also goes by the name of Ok ) is not a somebody but a glacier . The occasion mark the loss of the first Icelandic glacier lost as a result of climate change – though expert doubt it will be the last .
orbiter imagery taken by the US Geological Survey ’s Landsat satellites andtweetedby NASA on Monday shows just how drastically thing have changed over the last three decades , with before and after shots taken in 1986 and 2019 .
NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens , using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey .
The last of Okjökull will beimmortalized with a plaquereading :
Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to misplace its status as a glacier .
In the next 200 years all our glacier are anticipate to be the same path .
This monument is to recognise that we bang what is happening and what needs to be done
Only you know if we did it
" This will be the first monument to a glacier drop off to climate alteration anywhere in the world , " Cymene Howe , manufacturer of the 2018 filmNot Okdocumenting the glacier ’s death , say ina pressure release .
" By differentiate Ok ’s passing , we trust to draw off attention to what is being lost as Earth ’s glacier expire . "
Okjökull is think to have occupied approximately 16 square kilometre ( 6.2 straight mile ) in 1890 . A fiddling over half a century later ( 1945 ) and it had reduce to 7 square km ( 2.7 square air mile ) .
Its rapid retreat continued through the latter half of the twentieth 100 so that it was just 3.4 square kilometers ( 1.3 square Swedish mile ) in 2000 and 0.7 square kilometer ( 0.2 straight mile ) in 2012 . In 2014 , it was declare dead .
Republic of Iceland has something confining to 400 glaciers , many of which could be goneby 2200if current global warming trends continue . These are the world ’s great freshwater reserves and extend valuable selective information when it comes to understanding the Earth ’s atmosphere ( present and historical ) .
But icy retreat is n’t unparalleled to Iceland . It is a worldwide phenomenon , impress every continent bar Australia ( which is devoid of glaciers anyhow ) . Extreme ice melt is becoming a more and more common natural event . Just last June , for model , Greenland lostmore than a billion tonsof ice in a mean solar day . If current drift remain unchanged , Greenland ’s ice sheet could be almost all iceless by 3000 CE .
Meanwhile , on the other side of the earthly concern , Antarctica is melting atsix timesthe pace it was in 1979 . This process is spark by warmer temperature , itself a product ofhuman - driven climate change . Last July sawrecord - breaking heatwavesacross Europe and is likely to go down as not just the live July , butthe hottestmonthon platter . It followsthe hottest Juneon record . This year ’s scorching weather is not an anomaly – the last six years have beenthe warmest in documented history .
As for this week ’s memorial , Oddur Sigurðsson , a geologist in the Icelandic Meteorological Office , expects 100 hoi polloi will be gathering to mourn the passing of Okjökull . countenance ’s hope it ’s a one - off .
