Ice change per year · drag to scrub
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Sound output
drawn like a seismograph · starts with the soundSnouts measured · click one to hear it
Pick a year on the timeline.
Icelandic Glacier Data Sonification
JÖKULL DATA FIELDS by Francesco Fabris
It turns the retreat of Iceland's glaciers into sound. Jökull is Icelandic for glacier. Around 1890, at
the end of the Little Ice Age, glaciers covered about 12,400 km² of Iceland. By 2019 about 10,400 km² were left,
and the glaciers had lost some 540 billion tonnes of ice.
The piece runs from 1890 to 2100, one year at a time. Every autumn since 1930, volunteers of the Iceland Glaciological Society have walked to about 50 glacier snouts and measured how far each has moved.
Each measurement sounds as a crack, deeper and longer for a bigger retreat, swept across the island from west to east. Beneath them a low drone and the underwater sound of the Jökulsárlón lagoon follow the ice that remains, and meltwater grows louder in the years of heavy loss. On the map, the ice lost since about 1890 shows in red. After 2025 the glaciers follow the projections for low or high emissions, and the sound blurs as the future grows less certain.
The sounds are fragments from field recordings from Icelandic glaciers. Press play, or click and drag along the timeline to move through the years; zoom the map to hear one area. If you hear nothing, press the sound button at the top.
Data: World Glacier Monitoring Service and the Iceland Glaciological Society (snout measurements, mass balance, surges and floods), Icelandic Met Office (glacier outlines), Aðalgeirsdóttir et al. 2020 (ice loss since 1890), Compagno et al. 2021 (projections). Full sources at the bottom of the page.
Ice change per year · drag to scrub
Sound output
drawn like a seismograph · starts with the sound