VATNAJOKULL NATIONAL PARK (Iceland), Oct 27 — Toxic sulphurous gas, carrying the telltale reek of rotten eggs, wafted through vents in the steep walls of Iceland’s Viti crater,...
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Michelle Parks, a volcanologist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office , and Asta Rut Hjartardottir, a geophysicist at IMO, measure the temperature and acidity of Askja volcano's Viti crater lake, in Vatnajokull National Park, Iceland, August 9, 2024. — Reuters pic However, the team’s work has taken on broader significance. Last year, Parks and colleagues with the University of Iceland received government funding for a pioneering research project across 12 institutions to test a theory that could have dire implications not just for Iceland, but for every person on the planet: Whether the rapid retreat of glaciers as a result of human-caused climate change will trigger increased volcanic activity.
It was likely a cataclysmic scenario, with a “ridiculous amount of eruptions,” Parks said, as rivers of lava reshaped the island and ash rained into surrounding seas. Askja, too, registered a major explosive eruption during this time. Scientists first theorised in the 1970s that melting ice might impact volcanic eruptions. But only recently have they begun to understand the scale of the potential threat. Four years ago, volcanologists compiled the first comprehensive global database of volcanoes under ice or within five km of it, publishing their findings in the journal Global and Planetary Change.
When Laki, south-west of Askja, erupted in 1783-84, the fluorine it expelled contaminated the island’s plants and water sources, killing more than half of Iceland’s livestock. This agricultural collapse led to a famine that killed around a fifth of the island’s human population, while the resulting haze of sulphurous fog that later reached Europe may have contributed to the deaths of thousands more people.
But the government has also tapped its fiery foundation to its benefit, using it to heat homes and businesses and draw big-spending tourists to rejuvenating geothermal baths. After the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, the Icelandic government made volcanoes a pillar of a now multibillion-dollar tourism industry. Souvenir shops in the capital, Reykjavik, sell lava rocks from a recent eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula for 2,000 Icelandic krona apiece.
Kristjansson used to be able to stride right up to the edge of Skeidararjokull. But as it has rapidly shrunk over the past decade, a lake has formed at the foot of the glacier, blocking his way. He now has to use special binoculars to measure the distance. This year, he said, one point along the glacier’s edge showed a retreat of 300 metres, which is the greatest he has recorded.
Erik Sturkell, a geophysicist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, gestures as he works on a lava field at the Askja volcano in Vatnajokull National Park, August 9, 2024. — Reuters picOraefajokull is one of six active volcanoes covered by the Vatnajokull ice cap. As Vatnajokull has thinned and retreated, some of the volcanoes beneath it, as well as nearby Askja, have become agitated. Oraefajokull has calmed since its 2017 awakening.
Above the magma reservoir near the western side of the lake is where Askja has been inflating fastest, a lure for researchers. On a visit in August, Reuters encountered a team of three scientists from the University of Geneva at the lake’s edge, loading equipment into an inflatable dinghy. Their aim: to measure carbon dioxide concentrations in the lake and collect water samples from its deepest points.
Sigmundsson has been coming to the volcano almost every year since 1990 and he knows the terrain well. Shouldering a surveying tripod, he clambered with sure-footed expertise across beds of jagged, crunchy lava, searching for round metal markers that scientists anchored in the area in the 1960s and 1970s. These would tell him where to set up his equipment to check how much Askja had grown or shifted over the past year.
Edwards and his fellow researchers drew up a list of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes that lie under glaciers, based on the volume of ice on or near each one, the frequency of past eruptions, and the population living within 30 km . Seven of the top 10, they found, are in the Andes. The most dangerous is Villarrica in Chile, with more than 35,000 people living in its shadow.
How many of them are active or have the potential to awaken is difficult to ascertain. “There are probably two or three which are certainly active. But there may be as many as 100 or 150,” said John Smellie, a former senior volcanologist with the British Antarctic Survey who has completed 27 field seasons on the continent and won two Polar Medals from the British royals.
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