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The France Télévisions teams went to Iceland, as close as possible to Vatnajökull, one of the largest glaciers on the continent. Faced with its inexorable melting, scientists are worried. Meeting with Guillaume, a Frenchman who became a guide.
Vatnajökull (Iceland), the second largest glacier in Europe, is an ice colossus the size of Corsica. Guillaume Martin is original from Chamonix, in Haute-Savoie. Six years ago, he fell in love with the glacier. Today a guide, he sees its evolution every year. Where it meets the France Télévisions teams, the glacier recedes about 100 meters per year. Winter snows are no longer enough to rebuild everything that melts during the summer. The ice is gone forever.
It breaks off at the level of the ice wall, and falls into a huge lake that did not exist 100 years ago. The glacier then extended to the Atlantic Ocean. “You could call it the cradle of icebergs, or the place where the glacier is dying “, says Guillaume. That day, he accompanies two tourists from the Parisian suburbs. They enter together in a “mill“, a deep cavity sculpted by the melting ice. Today, temperature variations linked to climatic disturbances mean that it is no longer rare to see water flowing, even in the middle of winter. “The glaciers are melting, you can see it clearly. But to see it with our own eyes, it does not leave you indifferent “, concedes the young tourist.