Climate change may render Iceland uninhabitable in a century

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Climate change may render Iceland uninhabitable in a century

2 March 2026

Sometime over the next 100 years, human-driven warming could disrupt a vital ocean current that carries heat northward from the tropics. After this breach, most of the world would keep getting hotter — but northern Europe would cool substantially, with Iceland at the center of a deep freeze. Climate modeling shows Icelandic winter extremes plunging to an unprecedented minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit.

It is possible the scenario will not come to pass, but authorities in the North Atlantic Ocean nation are taking no chances, having deemed the prospect a national security risk.

How anyone can claim climate change is a hoax, or non-existent, when it had the potential to result in an entire country literally freezing over is beyond me.

Forests now cover two percent of Iceland thanks to replanting

22 July 2022

In the distant past, forests and trees covered large parts of Iceland, about forty percent of the country. But when permanent settlers arrived over a thousand years ago, much of this growth was cleared to make way for agriculture and grazing, and firewood. Efforts to replant trees since the 1990s though have seen forest areas return to two percent of the country today.

That number may not seem like much, but since 1990, the surface area covered by forest or shrubs in Iceland has increased more than six times over – from 7,000 hectares to 45,000. In 20 years, the number is expected to be 2.6%.

Every little bit helps. It’s a hopeful reminder that it’s not too late to take steps of any sort to deal with climate change.