Iceland...
Built by fire...
Sculpted by ice...
Massive glaciers cut through mountains.
Melting ice feeds thundering waterfalls.
The power there is just unbelievable.
If you touch the rocks around it,
you can feel them trembling.
On the world's largest volcanic island,
a titanic battle rages between fire and ice.
Its aftermath can be ferocious.
They're flash floods
and they can cause a lot of damage
wherever they go.
They basically ruin everything in their path.
Vast stretches of this cold-blooded wilderness
appear gripped by a never-ending Ice Age.
But as the Earth warms and glaciers melt,
what will become of Iceland?
(♪♪♪)
In the southeast of Iceland
at the foot of a colossal glacier,
an iceberg drifts serenely...
...on a remote glacial lake.
It is the size of a two-story house.
An echo from a long time ago
when ice blanketed much of the world.
This dreamlike lagoon,
awash with the wreckage of ice
that has crumbled from the glacier,
is a sign that Iceland is changing.
(♪♪♪)
15 years ago, there was no lake here.
Just a sheet of ice.
This glacier is shrinking.
It used to creep forward.
No longer.
It's losing more ice than it gains from snowfall.
But as it recedes,
a lagoon left in its wake is growing.
The glacier is retreating.
And the weight of the glacier
means that the ice is actually going into the ground,
means that when the glacier retreats,
it leaves a hole in the ground.
But the water flowing from the glacier
fills up the hole and creates this lagoon.
That particular lagoon is interesting to watch
because we can see so clearly from one year to another
that it is getting bigger.
It's nature being created.
We often say that Iceland is still under construction
and that's a good example of that.
The lagoon is an omen
of a greater glacial collapse to come.
Its very existence points to a potential disaster.
Not just for Iceland, but for our entire planet.
(Waves crashing)
Iceland lies in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean,
about 200 miles east of Greenland
on the edge of the Arctic Circle.
(♪♪♪)
Just 300 miles wide,
it is roughly the size of Kentucky.
This lone and rugged island
is a place of extreme natural beauty.
It is also one of the most volcanic places on Earth.
(Volcano erupting)
Iceland's 30 active volcanoes
generate 1/3rd of the world's land-based lava.
It is an island on fire.
On average, Iceland experiences
a major volcanic eruption every 5 years.
Lava has scraped bare great belts of the interior
creating cruel landscapes.
Just 1/5th of this hostile, alien land
is inhabited by humans.
200 earthquakes shake the island each year.
All over Iceland, steam hisses...
(Water erupts)
...water erupts...
...and lava spews
from the mantle, deep beneath the Earth's crust.
In 2010, a volcanic eruption at Eyjafjallajokull
brought global air travel to a standstill.
The wrath of Iceland's volcanoes
has been felt far beyond these shores.
But there is one force powerful enough
to challenge Iceland's fiery heart.
Ice.
About 1.5 million years ago,
a massive ice sheet descended from the north
and smothered the island.
Whole of Iceland was covered with ice
and the big icecaps, Greenland and Antarctica,
were quite a bit bigger than they are at present.
And that means that the sea-level
was about 100, 110 meters lower than it is now
because all the water was stored in the ice.
1/3rd of our planet lay trapped under a rigid blanket of ice.
Then, about 12,000 years ago,
the ice sheet loosened its grip and began its retreat.
Today, 11% of Iceland remains covered by glaciers.
Great rivers of slow-moving ice.
Spread out, they would cloak the entire island
in more than 100 feet of ice.
Iceland's glaciers
hold more than 800 cubic miles of water,
enough to fill Michigan's Lake Huron.
Deep within the realm of a steep mountain range
lies a frozen giant.
Vatnajokul,
the largest glacier in Iceland
and the greatest glacial mass in all of Europe.
With a surface area of more than 3,000 square miles,
it covers most of southern Iceland
and would entomb the city of Tokyo in ice
more than 1/3rd of a mile deep.
So much water is locked inside the glacier,
it would take Iceland's most powerful river
more than 200 years to carry it out to sea.
The glacier is so immense, it generates its own weather.
Cold winds blow off the ice-cap, chilling the valleys below.
Vatnajokul is constantly transforming.
As it pushes through the valley,
it melts in the bright daylight.
Then freezes, during frigid Arctic nights.
Crevasses, cut open by friction
as the ice slumps down the mountain,
can plunge more than 100 feet
deep into the glacier's icy heart.
For adventure-seekers,
the ice can be thrilling but treacherous.
When you hike on the glaciers,
you have to know what you're doing.
If you don't know what you're doing,
sometimes these crevasses can be very dangerous.
Sometimes they're snow-covered
and you can't even see where they are.
So by all means, people should always
either have the experience or have a guide with them
when they do something like that.
Farther up the glacier, crevasses are larger
making higher reaches impassable
and hiking even more harrowing.
In 1953, two British science students
set out on a research expedition on Vatnajokul.
They were never seen again.
It's believed the two fell into a deep and hidden crevasse.
In 2006,
mountaineering equipment belonging to the two students
was discovered on the ice.
At its thickest point,
the ice is more than 2/3rds of a mile deep.
Entombed under these icy folds
are mountains, valleys and plateaus.
The glacier also conceals volcanoes.
60% of Iceland's active volcano systems
lie under its glaciers.
And that can produce some dramatic results.
(Volcano erupting)
Grímsvotn...
It has the highest eruption rate of any volcano in Iceland.
In 2011,
it unleashed its fury for the fourth time in 14 years.
Torrents of molten rock
surged through shattered ice sheets,
hurling a billowing cloud of steam and ash
12 miles into the sky,
and plunging parts of the island into near darkness.
It is believed to be the most violent eruption in Iceland
since the 1960s.
Far more powerful
than the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull
that brought global air travel to its knees.
The two forces at play, fire and ice,
when mixed, are a power to be reckoned with.
You have these,
the super-cold glacier and the super-warm lava,
and when the eruptions take place under the glaciers,
first of all, the heat from the eruption
starts melting the glacier from underneath.
And in some cases,
the eruptions are big enough and last for long enough
to melt their way all the way through the ice.
And then we have this magnificent display of fire
just coming out of the ice.
They're kind of battling each other.
In the explosive showdown between lava and ice,
ice is a forbidding force.
But it is no match for Iceland's fiery volcanoes
which can wreak havoc in other, unexpected, ways.
Flooding,
triggered by the eruption of a volcano
beneath a glacier.
The 2010 eruption at Eyjafjallajokull
melted the glacier
and sent 2 billion cubic feet of water
flooding down the mountain,
nearly the volume of water that goes over Niagara Falls
in 6 hours.
The flash floods,
which are known in Iceland as "jokulhlaup"
or the "glacial floods".
And they will go down and onto the lowlands
and can cause a lot of damage wherever they go.
They basically ruin everything in their path.
Iceland's glacial floods are enormously destructive.
Raging torrents of water wash away roads.
At the foot of Vatnajokul glacier,
lies the twisted wreckage of a steel bridge
wiped out by glacial flooding.
(♪♪♪)
Glacial floods carry
millions of tons of volcanic rock and ash
to Iceland's south shore,
reshaping the coastline
and creating stretches of basalt beach
as black as gunmetal.
It's because it's all produced by breaking down basalt
which is a black rock.
And most of the rock,
the majority of rocks in Iceland,
are black in color because most of it is basalt.
So we have this dark color.
So it-- I remember one time going to Hawaii
and everyone talked about the black sand beach.
"You need to go and see the black sand beach."
And I said, "Why?
I've seen nothing but black sand beaches
in my life.
I'm from a place where all the rocks are dark."
At Sandvik Beach,
towering cliffs are home to thousands of sea birds,
including the puffin.
(Birds squawking)
More than half the world's Atlantic puffins
breed on Iceland's rocky cliff tops.
(Birds squawking in distance)
Although the north coast of the island
touches the Arctic Circle,
its coastal waters remain free of sea ice.
The Atlantic Gulf Stream, a system of thermal currents
warms this passage of the North Atlantic.
(♪♪♪)
But with warmer water comes rain.
This stretch of coastline
is one of the wettest in Iceland,
with average annual rainfall of more than 90 inches.
Isolated near the top of the world,
Iceland is ravaged by storms in every direction.
Fierce winds and rolling Atlantic waves
batter its shores.
Through the centuries, scores of Icelandic mariners
have drowned in its wild, stormy waters.
Even today, there is real danger for the Icelanders
who harvest these cold, dark seas.
The connection between
the people living in these villages and the ocean
is very, very strong.
It is their livelihood.
And sometimes in some areas,
especially close to the south coast,
where we have the rough surf of the Atlantic
hammering the coast,
going out in the boats to catch the fish
has always been a big challenge.
They have to go through the surf sometimes.
And even today in the fish-- big fishing boats
and with all the technology,
this is often a very dangerous and difficult thing to do.
So these are tough people
and they have learned to survive
with this giant, the Atlantic Ocean.
At the end of the black sand beach,
jagged blades of basalt
rise more than 200 feet into the air.
Once part of a greater volcanic cliff line,
these ancient sea stacks
have been ground down over time by wind
and the rages of the sea.
Farther inland,
Iceland's mighty ice fields are also shrinking.
Although the majority of its glaciers
lie atop active volcano systems,
less than 5% of the melting of its ice caps
is attributed to volcanic heat.
A far more destructive force threatens Iceland's glaciers.
Rising global temperatures.
Over the last 100 years, the planet has warmed.
The upper reaches of the northern hemisphere
are warming twice as fast as regions farther south.
(♪♪♪)
In a land of ice and snow,
the effects of climate change are unmistakable.
The glaciers are melting.
Of course, the glaciers are disappearing right now.
I've been monitoring glaciers for 30 years
and it's the temperature, mean temperature,
particularly, the summer temperature,
which is causing the changes.
And the summer temperature, and temperature in general,
has been rising during this last century
very consistently.
In Iceland, glacial melt is nothing new.
Each winter, snow falls on the glacier
and gradually compresses into ice.
Each summer,
melt water pours from the icecaps,
gathers in streams and rivers,
and cascades into valleys below.
This cycle of freeze and thaw
has endured for thousands of years.
But in the last century,
glacial melt has far exceeded snowfall.
The glaciers are vanishing...
...at an alarming rate.
5% of Iceland's ice caps
have melted in the last 40 years.
Each year, 11 billion tons of ice
vanish from the island.
The last time Iceland experienced
an accelerated melt on this scale
is when it emerged from the last Ice Age
more than 12,000 years ago.
(♪♪♪)
Iceland's largest icecap feeds dozens of outlet glaciers,
essentially tongues
that slide away from the larger mass of ice
and into deep valleys.
The glaciers are estimated to be melting
at a rate of 3 feet per year.
Many of its outlet glaciers
are melting at an even faster pace.
So this glacier is actually moving quite fast.
During the last 100 years,
it's been retreating very rapidly.
So now it's further back than it has ever been
in the last 120 years or so.
Since the early '90s,
all the glaciers have been retreating
and losing mass quite rapidly.
Svinafellsjokull,
one of the largest outlet glaciers at Vatnajokull,
advances down the mountain
between 80 to 100 feet each year.
But despite this immense forward push of ice,
summer melting causes its leading edge
to recede more than 130 feet.
Great swaths of the valley,
once enveloped by the glacier,
now lie exposed
as Vatnajokull retreats up the mountain.
It is a grim reminder that the glacier is dying.
At this glacial lagoon,
huge chunks of ice have broken off
or calved from the glacier.
Calving begins with a fracture in the edge of the glacier
caused by the erosion from wind, water or melting ice.
When the crack penetrates the full depth of the glacier,
the sheer weight of the ice takes its toll
and huge blocks break away creating icebergs.
Some are darkly striped,
blackened by debris from the valley floor.
(♪♪♪)
Calving is a natural process in the life of a glacier.
But across the Arctic,
glaciers are calving at an alarming rate.
As temperatures rise
and polar ice weakens and melts,
more and more ice cleaves from the glacier.
As the ice sheet breaks apart,
lagoons swell and flood the lowlands.
The icebergs in the lagoon,
ruins from a dwindling ice cap,
provide a glimpse into the future
of all of Iceland's glaciers.
We have done some modeling for the Icelandic glaciers
and taking some assumptions
about how the temperature is gonna increase in the future,
we see actually quite a bleak future for the glaciers.
So most of them will probably be gone
in about 200, 250 years.
The prospect of a glacial collapse
is a disturbing one for the people of Iceland.
Locked inside the ice caps
is their largest reservoir of fresh water.
If all the glaciers would disappear entirely,
it would have very negative effect
on our water supply.
And not only in form of the drinking water that we need,
both hot and cold water,
but also the fact
that 70% of the energy that we have in Iceland
is produced in hydraulic power plants
by damming the rivers.
So they are a very, very big part of--
important part of our lives.
(♪♪♪)
The deterioration of the ice sheets
could have devastating consequences,
not just for Iceland, but for the world beyond.
(♪♪♪)
In the global context,
we can say that when the glaciers melt,
sea level is gonna rise.
The glaciers in Iceland
are not that big in a global context.
so if we take all the glaciers in Iceland,
melt them and put it into the ocean,
the sea level will rise about 1 centimeter.
So that's not a big influence.
But we have greater neighbor, Greenland ice sheet.
And if we mentally take that whole ice,
and melt it and put it into the ocean,
the sea level would rise 7 meters.
A sea-level-rise of 20 feet
would drown more than 400,000 square miles of land,
threaten the planet's coastal nations and cities
and put more than 100 million people at risk.
(♪♪♪)
But it's not just sea levels that are climbing
as a result of climate change.
Iceland too is rising.
As ice melts, its load becomes lighter
reducing pressure on the land below
and the ground rebounds.
It's known as "isostatic lift".
In some areas,
the island is rising more than 1 inch per year.
The speed of this rise
is among the fastest on the planet.
And as the land rebounds, volcanoes stir.
Heavy weight on top of a volcano,
such as a massive sheet of ice will suppress volcanic activity.
As ice melts, downward pressure is released
allowing magma to rise to the surface
where it can trigger volcanic eruptions.
Geological evidence from the last Ice Age
suggests that volcanic eruptions in Iceland
increased 30-fold after the glaciers retreated.
Scientists estimate a glacial collapse
could lead to a major eruption
every 7 years.
Eruptions on this scale
can lead to something even worse.
In 1783,
an eruption at Laki in south-central Iceland
sent a poisonous cloud of sulfur dioxide
into the atmosphere.
(♪♪♪)
The thick fog of fumes plunged Iceland into famine,
spread over Europe
and possibly killed an estimated two million people worldwide.
It was one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions
in human history.
(♪♪♪)
As Iceland's glaciers continue to melt
atop some of the world's deadliest volcanoes,
the threat of eruptions increases.
Some geologists believe
a massive natural disaster similar to Laki
could happen again.
There will be another one like that in the future, yes.
Every now and then, about 1,000 years apart,
we get huge eruptions,
which will even affect greatly the modern society.
We'll, probably, have a much better way
of defending ourselves than people had then,
when 10% of the people died from the famine
and the results of the haze.
But there may very well be volcanic eruptions
that will affect the whole society of Iceland
in such a way that it will hardly be habitable.
The Laki lava field,
which laid waste to more than 200 square miles,
is a reminder of the horror that befell Iceland.
But where nature can destroy,
it can also create beauty.
On this night,
the sky above the field begins to bruise.
And in the upper atmosphere, a cosmic spectacle unfolds.
Aurora Borealis.
The Northern Lights.
Electrically charged particles of solar wind
collide with the Earth's magnetic field,
creating one of nature's
most elusive and spectacular sights.
Iceland may be built from fire and volcanic rock
but it takes its shape from ice.
As glaciers advanced and retreated
over thousands of years,
they carved out deep fjords
and sculpted Iceland's furrowed coastline.
Some glaciers are long gone.
Others are still at work today
dramatically transforming the landscape.
Vatnajokul bears down on the valleys like a bulldozer.
At the rate of 2 feet per day,
it crushes the land beneath it,
eroding solid rock like sandpaper over wood.
Around Vatnajokul you have these runoff glaciers
that come flowing down from the big ice sheet,
carving the valleys,
making the valleys deeper and wider as they do that.
So one of the things that you can clearly see
when you look at the glaciers are the glacier moraines
that are often in front of them,
which are the result of the fact
that the glacier pushes forward,
and it pushes gravel and dirt in front of it,
creating these mounds.
And then as the glacier retreats,
it leaves these mounds just sitting there
like small hills-- sometimes very big hills.
Piles of moraines litter the landscape,
evidence that the glaciers are disappearing.
Inside these rocky ridges are clues
to where the glaciers have been.
Rocks and minerals
unique to a particular landscape hundreds of miles away
can be found in the moraine,
proof that a glacier flowed through that region.
As the glaciers power forward,
they scour and gouge the bedrock
with boulders carried in their bellies,
leaving scars in their wake
only to be revealed when the glaciers recede.
These juggernauts of ice are so powerful,
they can destroy mountains.
On the Snafellsnes Peninsula in western Iceland,
a free-standing mountain
bears the scars of the glacier that covered it,
Kirkjufell.
It is one of the most distinct models
of glacial erosion in Iceland.
Kirkjufell's unusual pyramid shape
can be traced to the last Ice Age.
Glaciers on either side of its peak,
scraped slowly down the mountain
scooping out rock and carrying it down its slopes.
As the glacier flowed,
shattered rocks, caught underneath the ice,
ground the mountainsides,
carving out more rock.
When the glaciers melted and retreated,
Kirkjufell was left completely severed
from the rest of the mountain chain.
Today, it stands alone.
A mighty mountain,
but no match for the power of ice.
Nowhere is the crushing strength of ice more extensive
than in Iceland's magnificent glacial valleys.
(♪♪♪)
These canyons form when glaciers push slowly
through channels already cut by flowing streams.
(♪♪♪)
Year after year,
decade after decade,
century after century,
the glacier eats away
at the sides of the original valley
transforming a narrow gully
into a wide and mighty canyon.
Entire mountainsides are sheared away
leaving behind steep vertical cliffs.
Melt-water from the glacier now feeds the stream
that flows through this mighty valley.
Clearly too small
to have created this majestic canyon,
it's known as a misfit stream.
It can take decades, sometimes centuries,
for Iceland's water to complete its cycle
and return to the sea.
Rivers and streams flow with meltwater from snow
that fell hundreds of years ago.
Meltwater from glaciers
seeps into the ground and through porous lava rock.
You could almost say that the lava is like a sponge.
It takes in a lot of water
and then it slowly lets it go
as the sponge fills up.
It takes maybe 30 years for a drop of water
to go from the point it melts, seeps into the ground,
until it flows out somewhere else.
So it's a very slow process.
These humble streams merge together
to form powerful rivers,
which in turn form another erosive force
that has shaped Iceland.
(Water gushing)
Waterfalls.
Iceland's climate and topography combine to generate
some of the most stunning waterfalls in the world.
On some parts of the island, waterfalls outnumber people.
In this North-Atlantic climate,
snow and rain frequently drench the land.
High in the mountains,
melting glaciers feed frigid rivers
already swollen from precipitation.
Over dozens of miles,
these glacial rivers gather pace and volume.
Finally, they roar over rocky cliffs.
(♪♪♪)
At Selfoss,
an unending flow of glacial melt water
cascades over the ridge, battering the rocks below.
More than 30 feet high,
Selfoss generates immense power.
But it is a trickle
compared to what lies downstream.
Dettifoss.
150 feet high.
300 feet wide.
It is the largest waterfall in Europe,
powerful enough to fracture solid rock.
(♪♪♪)
Early Icelanders called Dettifoss
"the king of all waterfalls".
On an average day,
enough water cascades over its crest line
to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool
every 5 seconds.
In warm weather, which boosts meltwater,
or on rainy days,
even more water is unleashed.
Dettifoss is a magnificent display
of the power of water.
It's a breathtaking thing to see.
And when you're standing next to it,
not only can you oversee it
and hear the rumble from the water,
but if you touch the rocks around it,
you can feel them trembling.
So the power there is just unbelievable.
(♪♪♪)
The river that feeds the largest waterfall in Europe
is in turn fed by the largest glacier in Europe,
Vatnajokull,
more than 100 miles south of here.
The river's glacial origins are evident
in its unusual silvery color.
Tiny remnants of rocks
that have been crushed by the glacier
are suspended in the river,
creating an opaque-grey tint in the rushing water.
On its long journey from glacier to sea,
the river carves away at the highland bedrock
washing away rock fragments to widen the valley.
(♪♪♪)
As the current nears the highlands,
it builds in power,
forming rapids
that plunge into the canyon below.
At the top of the falls,
the force of the water is powerful enough
to flatten rocks at the edge.
At the bottom, the basin becomes larger
as rushing water and sediment wear away at the rock
causing the waterfall to recede upstream.
It's slowly carving the canyon
that we have below the waterfall.
So in time it's slowly moving further inland,
carving the rock that is underneath.
So that's another form of Iceland
being under construction.
If you would return 2,000 years from now,
it would probably be a little bit higher up
than it is now.
(♪♪♪)
Dettifoss plummets into a gorge,
1,600 feet wide...
...and 100 feet deep.
This mighty canyon was formed
by catastrophic glacial flooding,
sometime after the last Ice Age.
A volcanic eruption underneath the Vatnajokull glacier
is believed to be the source of the flood.
At its peak,
the flood roared over the plateau
with four times the power of the Amazon River
taking out everything in its path.
The spectacular collision of fire and ice
can wipe out entire landscapes.
But as evidenced here,
fire and ice work together to create stunning new worlds.
In the north of Iceland, a barren plain,
scarred by lava from a volcanic eruption
more than 9,000 years ago,
gives way to a tumbling waterfall,
65 feet high.
This is Aldeyjarfoss.
(♪♪♪)
Foaming glacial water
gushes through its narrow passage,
thrashing into a wide basin surrounded by basalt columns.
These peculiar formations are the result of lava flows
that have cooled quickly, contracted and cracked
to create precise geometric structures.
Below the waterfall,
we have this wonderful display of the basalt columns
that are hidden underground
and we can only see them
because this raging torrent of water
has carved this canyon for us to get a peek into the Earth.
These basalt columns are not, all of them straight.
It's very interesting to watch them in that area
because they're kind of-- they're curved,
they're going in all different directions.
So around Aldeyjarfoss, we have nature
creating this abstract piece of art for us.
(♪♪♪)
Not only do Iceland's waterfalls sculpt
its ever-evolving landscape,
they have also played a pivotal role in its culture.
Godafoss, in north Iceland,
is closely connected to one of the most
influential events in the country's history:
the conversion from heathendom to Christianity
in the year 1000.
According to legend, Iceland's lawspeaker,
himself a pagan priest,
was faced with a growing religious crisis
between Christians
and those who worshipped the old Nordic Gods.
The lawspeaker declared Iceland would become Christian.
In a symbolic act,
he hurled statues of the old Norse Gods into the fall.
Hence its name, Godafoss,
the waterfall of the Gods.
Even in the winter months, when temperatures plummet
and ice extends its grip,
Iceland's waterfalls continue to flow
due to the sheer power of the glacial rivers
that pour from its tremendous ice caps.
(♪♪♪)
Iceland is alive.
Its landscape is ever-evolving.
Glaciers that appear frozen in time
are on the move,
cutting away mountains and gouging out valleys
as they advance and retreat.
It is a challenging wilderness,
a place where cold waves crash onto volcanic rock,
where treacherous crevasses yawn
and icebergs are born.
Deep below its glaciers,
molten lava burns and volcanoes stir
as fire and ice collide.
But climate change has tipped the balance.
Iceland's glaciers are melting,
freeing volcanoes from their icy grip,
triggering violent eruptions and thundering floods
that sculpt the land.
Glaciers play a tremendous role
in Iceland's ever-changing environment.
And yet they are disappearing.
Deep within the ice lies history
that scientists need to extract
before it vanishes forever.
In 200 years, Iceland's glaciers may be gone.
For now,
these icy giants remain a frozen wonder.
(♪♪♪)