Iceland

Abstract

Iceland is located in the North Atlantic Ocean, just below the Arctic Circle, and is a meeting point of warm and cold oceanic and atmospheric currents. The island’s rugged terrain, heavy precipitation and relatively low air temperatures have thus produced large ice caps that cover about 10 % of the country (10,500 km², 3400 km³). These glaciers helped form the country’s mountainous landscape, interspersed with valleys and fjords, and their meltwaters are the sources of many of the country’s main rivers. A brief overview of Iceland’s main glaciers follows, with their locations, altitudes, snowlines, meteorological conditions, mass balances, and discharge of meltwaters. About 60 % of Iceland’s ice masses cover active volcanoes, and thus subglacial volcanic eruptions and jökulhlaups are frequent. The close and centuries-long cohabitation of Icelanders with ice masses has resulted in detailed observations, maps and digital models of glaciers’ surfaces, bedrock topographies, subglacial watercourses and geomorphological effects of glacier-volcano interactions. A brief history of the advances and retreats of Iceland’s major glaciers, including surges, is then presented from the time of settlement until the present day. Finally, some predictions as to future developments of the country’s two largest glaciers, Vatnajökull and Langajökull, are discussed. Iceland is promoted as an ideal location for research into glacier-volcano interaction and temperate glaciers, for increased knowledge in the latter could prove invaluable for predicting responses of ice masses to climate change, including even the consequences of global warming for the polar ice caps.

‘… for there are vast and boundless fires, overpowering frost and glaciers, boiling springs and violent ice-cold streams.’ The King’s Mirror from the mid-13th century (Larson 1917, p. 131).