QUICK FACTS
Where is it? Ok volcano, Iceland [64.60038686, -20.87986624]
What’s in the photos? A comparison of Okjökull, a glacier atop Ok volcano, before and after it was declared dead
Which satellites took the photos? Landsat 5 and Landsat 8
When were they taken? Sept. 14, 1986, and Aug. 1, 2019
Two satellite photos taken 33 years apart show the disappearance of a glacier in Iceland that was the first ice mass to be declared dead as a result of human-caused climate change.
Okjökull was a dome-shaped glacier situated around the summit crater on Ok (pronounced Auk), a 3,940-foot-tall (1,200 meters) shield volcano located 44 miles (71 kilometers) northwest of Reykjavík. (The name Okjökull translates to “Ok glacier” in Icelandic.)
In 1901, Okjökull’s ice covered an area of around 15 square miles (39 square kilometers), but when the first of the two satellite photos was taken in 1986, there was less than 1 square mile (2.6 square km) of ice left. By the time the second image was captured in 2019, the ice covered less than 0.4 square miles (1 square km), according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.
The glacier was declared dead in 2014, when Icelandic glaciologists revealed that the ice had become so thin that it was no longer being slowly pulled down the mountain by gravity, meaning it had stopped moving for the first time in tens of thousands of years, according to a 2024 paper summarizing Okjökull’s demise.
The glacier’s death was showcased and explored in a 2018 short film titled “Not Ok,” which was made by researchers from Rice University in Texas.
Related: See all the best images of Earth from space
In August 2019, around 100 people, including researchers and politicians, attended a funeral for Okjökull near the summit of Ok, according to The Guardian. During this ceremony, a commemorative plaque, inscribed with a message titled “A letter to the future,” was placed near the summit.
It reads as follows: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it.”
The plaque also listed the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which was 415 parts per million at the time. As of March 2025, the concentration is over 428 ppm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In 2023, Iceland also created the world’s first iceberg graveyard, where ice-like headstones were constructed for the 15 major glaciers listed on the Global Glacier Casualty List, all of which are either dead or critically endangered, according to the United Nations. This list includes the Anderson Glacier in Washington state, which, in 2015, became the first U.S. glacier to be declared dead.
Because of inconsistent monitoring and debates about the true sizes of glaciers, it is unclear exactly how many glaciers have been lost due to climate change, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. However, some researchers estimate that up to 10,000 glaciers of various sizes may have already been lost to climate change, The Washington Post reported in 2024.
