A Mystical Blue Blob Is Saving Iceland’s Glaciers from Climate Change — Temporarily

In 2019, a memorial plaque was laid on the ground where a glacier once stood. The glacier was called Okjökull. Climate change put an end to its existence 5 years ago. It melted the glacier to death.

The memorial plaque read:

A letter to the future

Okjökull 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.

Photo: YouTube/The Study Finds Guy

In that same year, as part of its effort to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change, Iceland turned its focus to a new technology called CarbFix. CarbFix was inspired by a 2016 study by an international team, which reported that carbon dioxide could be permanently disposed of as environmentally-harmless carbonate minerals in subterranean basaltic rocks. A pilot project was carried out.

Then, in 2021, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization announced that, due to the success of Iceland’s Orca plant, it has become the biggest operational system for carbon capture and storage on the planet.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Cancilleria Ecuador

Nevertheless, CarbFix has its limitations. First, it requires massive volumes of porous basaltic rocks and water. And then there’s the cost. The construction of Orca plant alone was estimated at $10 million, up to $15 million.

Scientists have estimated that Iceland’s glaciers were melting 11 gigatons of ice yearly from 1995 – 2010. If it continues, the world will suffer from dangerous rise in sea levels, causing islands to sink underwater, displacement of more than a billion people, crises in food and drinking water, epidemics, and worldwide economic havoc.

Photo: Pixabay/WikiImages

As the world struggles with global warming, there is something in the North Atlantic Ocean that is helping Iceland in saving its glaciers. Something mystical and unexpected. A blue blob.

No one knows the origin of this Blue Blob, but scientists have long observed a cooling phenomenon near Iceland which is called the North Atlantic warming hole.

Photo: YouTube/The Study Finds Guy

A new study discovered that Iceland’s glaciers have stopped melting as much as they were more than a decade ago due to what the researchers call the Blue Blob. According to lead author Brice Noël, an expert climate modeler at Utrecht University, this cold patch of water has been cooling Iceland since 2011 and can keep it cold enough to slow down or halt ice melting for the next 30 years.

That’s great news for the world and for Iceland’s 269 glaciers – until 2050. As Noël emphasizes to everyone, “The Arctic is warming fast. If we wish to see glaciers in Iceland, then we have to curb the warming.”

All the same, let’s take a moment to be grateful for the blue blob that’s keeping climate change in check for now.

Written by Doris De Luna

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