Iceland’s glaciers are retreating so quickly that future generations may wonder where Iceland got its name. The “land of ice,” to pay tribute to its vanished glaciers, inaugurated the world’s first glacier cemetery on August 17, near its capital Reykjavik.
Researchers from Rice University in Houston, Texas, the Icelandic Met Office, geologists and glaciologists, and government officials attended the ceremony, which is a prelude to the International Year of Glacier Conservation.
2025, International Year of Glacier Conservation
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2025 International Year of Glacier Conservation and proclaimed on March 21 of each year World Glacier Day. L’UNESCO et World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the two United Nations entities responsible for the international year and day, were among the many co-organizers of the event in Iceland.
On this occasion, the list of 15 Extinct or Threatened Glaciers has been unveiled. According to scientists, global warming has already caused thousands of glaciers to disappear around the world since 2000. At least half of them will have melted by 2100.
15 Ice Tombstones That Will Melt Too
The Glacier Cemetery consists of 15 tombstones carved into the ice by Icelandic sculptor Ottó Magnússon.
“We’ve never needed a glacier graveyard before,” said Cymene Howe of Rice University. “Now we have it. And while these headstones will melt — like their glacial counterparts — we hope the ceremony and the icy headstones will serve as poignant reminders that the world’s glaciers are doomed to the same fate unless we act soon.”
The ice sculptures were placed in a field near the sea, with a splendid view of Snæfellsjökull. This glacier is well known to literature students, as it is the entrance to the center of the earth in Jules Verne’s novel “Journey to the Center of the Earth”.
Le glacier de Snaefellsjökull en Iceland. Photo: Anjali Kiggal/Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0
Although Snæfellsjökull has lost more than half its size since the end of the 19th century, many other glaciers are in a much worse situation. The Pizol Glacier, in Suisse (2019), that of Sarenne in France (2023), from Anderson to UNITED STATES (2015) and Martial Sur in Argentine (2018), are notably on the list of dead glaciers in the world.
Number of glaciers condemned
The died in 2014 from the Ok glacier in Iceland had already been commemorated in 2019 during an official ceremony, in the presence of the Prime Minister and Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights.
“It is likely that many more will follow, as there is no evidence that CO2 emissions are decreasing,” says Hrafnhildur Hannesdóttir, a glaciologist at the Icelandic Met Office.
Actually, Iceland has already lost 70 of its 400 glaciers. Some of them, like the next candidate for extinction, Hofsjökull East, are very small. “It is relatively low and flat and will not survive for long,” says Hannesdóttir.
Melting of Icelandic glaciers alone would cause sea levels to rise by one centimetre
If all Iceland’s glaciers disappeared, the meltwater would contribute to a one-centimeter rise in global sea levels, almost as much as all the glaciers in the Himalayasselon le glaciologue islandais Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson.
In the Himalayas, they cover about 40,000 km2, while the largest glacier in Iceland and Europe, Vatnajökull, covers 7,700 km2. For various reasons, “the big one” is expected to survive for perhaps three centuries.
Iceland’s second largest glacier, Langjökull, is more at risk, particularly because it is much lower. Only 10% to 20% of it will remain by 2100.
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