On Sunday a funeral was held in Iceland to commemorate Okjokull, what was once a vast glacier, reports the Associated Press. It was estimated to span 15 square miles (38 square kilometers) in 1901. It now takes up less than half a square mile (under 1 square kilometer), according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
Icelandic geologist Oddur Sigurðsson presented to the audience, which included Iceland's Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson and around 100 others, a death certificate for Okjokull. In a symbolic move, a plaque was planted with a message to future generations. It reads:
"Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. 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."
The funeral is actually a few years late, as Okjokull lost its glacier status in 2014. Since jokull is Icelandic for volcano, the former glacier now just goes by Ok -- named after the volcano it rested atop.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 20 2019, @12:03AM (1 child)
There are also drowned villages in the English channel. From memory, it seems that you could have walked from today's British Isles to the continent, all those years ago.
https://www.livescience.com/1759-stone-age-settlement-english-channel.html [livescience.com]
That quote should be corrected to something like, "This is the only site of it's kind, that we are aware of." It's probably safe to say that there are other sites in the English Channel that were drowned. This particular site may be the most permanent settlement to have been drowned - or it may not.
But, yeah - climate change is nothing new, nor is sea level rise.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20 2019, @02:25AM
Yes, there are many places like that all around the world:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland [wikipedia.org]
Climate change is a thing, and it is coming no matter what humans do.