Iceland’s Glaciers - 360 | Into Water

Glaciers are natural wonders. They're shapeshifters, wild and alive. They hold the keys to the secrets of humanity's past and humanity's future.

I'm Dr. M. Jackson. I am a geographer, a climatologist, and a National Geographic Explorer. For over a thousand years, since settlement, Icelandic history, economy, and culture have been interwoven with ice. Glaciers have always advanced our zest; the rate they're melting today is faster than any other time. That's the story of ice; it's not ceasing.

Today, we’re doing terminal moraine surveys of Hatha-Yoga. Between 1890 and 2010, nearly four kilometers of the glacier’s physical body dissolved, largely due to increasing air temperatures. Half my research focuses on glaciers; the other half focuses on the people who live with glaciers. Every year, millions of people travel to Iceland to see the ice before it's gone.

It's one of the things I think a lot about: what you do if you're out here every day. When you're taking pictures— and even of your tourists— you’re taking a record of what the landscape looked like that day. Because in 10 days, add two weeks, add a year—it’s entirely different.

On many levels, like Sola India, I've stared at glacier-related businesses out of the coastal village. As the temperatures increased, I mean, I almost don't believe it, and I work out here. I have to look at these images. My cinders have told me that as glaciers mount, they mount money. I've seen an economic shift that has reinvigorated this entire region.

It allowed me unique access, not only to glaciers but to the people working with them. For nearly a decade, I've been working on the southeastern coast of Iceland, home to Europe's largest ice cap, Vatnajökull. I think Iceland is a living classroom, a huge opportunity to bridge the gap between scientific data and human stories.

As the tourism industry booms, fishing— the backbone of Húsey's economy— responds to glaciers in surprising ways. As glaciers recess, the land like a sponge rebounds upward. Húsey is actually rising. Coupled with sedimentation, over the coming years, it’s possible that large ships may no longer be able to enter and exit. What happens to fishing families then?

Everything I do focuses on trying to make sense of the physical and social changes. This is what is so powerful about glaciers; glaciers make visible abstract concepts. They make visible climatic changes, human history, and large timescales. They make visible the stories we’re all a part of, the stories we ignore, the stories we act upon.

If there is one thing my work continues to show me, it’s that the ice influences us just as much as we influence ice. What happens to ice happens to us.