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- Iceland has honoured the passing of Ok Jokull glacier.It is the first glacier lost to climate change in the world.
- The glacier was officially declared dead by the Icelandic Meteorological Office when it was no longer thick enough to move.What once was glacier has been reduced to a small patch of ice atop a volcano.
- A bronze plaque was also unveiled in a ceremony to mark Okjokull which translates to “Ok glacier” in the western Iceland.
- The plaque was labelled with “415 ppm CO2” referring to the record level of carbon dioxide measured in the atmosphere.
- Iceland loses about 11 billion tonnes of ice per year.Scientists fear that all of the island country’s 400-plus glaciers will be gone by 2200.
- Since the early 1900s,many glaciers around the world have been rapidly melting.Human activities are at the root of this phenomenon.
- Further,since the industrial revolution,carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions have raised temperatures even higher in the poles.This has led to glaciers rapidly melting by calving off into the sea and retreating on land.
