Skaftafellsjökull Glacier Barely Visible

A ranger with Vatnajökull National Park has published an incredibly sad series of photographs documenting Skaftafellsjökull glacier over the past five years, reports RÚV.

“When you look at these pictures and compare them, the change is pretty striking,” said Guðmundur Ögmundsson, the park ranger who took the first photo while trying out a new lens for his camera.

While browsing his pictures, Guðmundur decided to take a photo each year since he felt that it was easy to become blind to changes when you looked at the same view each day.

“In actuality, you could say that a certain nostalgia comes with looking at the photos,” Guðmundur said. “It’s obviously not news that glaciers are melting and shrinking but these pictures really highlight how extreme it is. We get a lot of schoolchildren and tourists out here and we tell them about what’s happening to the glaciers and they think these pictures are quite striking too.”

The last picture, where the glacier is no longer visible was taken just a few days ago.

All the photos were taken from the same spot, with the same lens, the same angle at roughly the same time of year. While glaciers can contract and expand over time Guðmundur explains that too much of the glacier is gone for it to be a simple matter of ebb and flow.