Iceland’s Polar Ice Caps

Another New Wonder was announced this morning:  The Polar Ice Caps in Iceland.

I’m a bit confused over whether “wonders” are supposed to be natural or man-made, so this one confused me for a bit.  But I don’t want to get into the politics of the choices made.  For me, it’s more about the exploration and ideas of places that I may not have thought about.

I’ve thought about Iceland, though.  A lot.  For a long while, I knew the airlines that flew there, the route structures to get there, and had even investigated some of the landmarks and culture of the country.  But the polar ice caps never crossed my mind.

Iceland is a European island nation just south of the Arctic Circle. The island’s interior is virtually uninhabitable, so most towns are located along the coastline, and its fjords.  (Most of my interest in Iceland centered on its capital city of Reykjavik.).

So what is a polar ice cap?   It is an area that is covered in ice in the polar region.   (NOTE:  Our ice caps are primarily made of water, but it was interesting to learn that Mars has polar ice caps as well.  On Mars they are composed of ice that is a mixture of carbon dioxide and water.)  Polar ice caps were formed because there was low surface temperature.  Basically ““ because it’s really, REALLY cold!  The ice caps are currently shrinking, and many people believe it is due to global warming.

On an island made up of so many glaciers, Vatnajokull (in photo) is the largest of them all.  It is located in the southeastern part of the country, and represents approximately eight percent of the country.  The average thickness of Vatnajokull is over 1300 feet, and at its thickest, over 3300 feet.  This is one huge glacier!  Beneath the glacier, lay several volcanoes, and recent volcanic activity is also thought to be responsible for its shrinking sizkr

I’m still putting Iceland high on my list of place to visit.  It seems to be a country of the very, very cold (glaciers) and the very, very hot (volcanoes), while somehow managing to coexist in the middle of the extremes.

Photo credit:  flickr