Photograph by Tom Schifanella / National Geographic Your Shot

Icelandic glaciers disappearing fast

Our Icelandic guide, Hanna Pètursdóttir, admiring and ice cave we hiked to inside the Svínafellsjökull Glacier. Hanna has observed this ice cave for several seasons and she noted that it is rapidly expanding due to the effects of global warming. Since 2000, Icelandic glaciers have lost 12 percent of their size, in less than 15 years.

Tom submitted the photograph above to National Geographic for a story they were producing on climate change. His was one of twenty-five chosen for the story from about five thousand submissions. The twenty-five photos were also exhibited at the Conference of the Parties Climate Summit in Marrakesh, Morocco, and the story was picked up by The Washington Post, CNN, Newshub, and Mashable.