Glaciers contraction and expansion is fat-tailed distributed

Recently I was again visiting Iceland. Besides from hot springs (and hot women) you will always be able to cool yourself down in Iceland. Between the volcano’s and even above some volcano’s you will find glaciers. Vatnajokull is probably Europe's largest glacier (The average thickness of the ice is 400 m, with a maximum thickness of 1000 meter).

Glaciers expand and contract basically continuously, part of this behavior is stochastic part is deterministic (summer winter solar cycles, volcanoes below exploding etc). Then from time to time they expand dramatically (ice ages), what is a negative tail event for some could be a positive for others.

"In 1996, the volcano beneath the Vatnajokul glacier erupted, causing parts of the glacier to melt and created a huge river, temporarily the biggest river on earth by volume."

The few people I met on Iceland were in general very optimistic even if the county is hit hard by the financial crisis. One of the Icelandic ice climbers I met even though it was better now after the crisis. More focus on enjoying the nature and less focus on money and material wealth.

Some of the Icelandic glaciers supposedly contracted several hundred meters last year. Also the economy contracted dramatically. But there will be another boom both in the economy and in the glaciers.

And yes do not forget there is very little danger of getting swine flu in the middle of a glacier.