Tag: Iceland

NPR Is Wrong, Iceland’s Mosquitoes Are Imports, Not Climate Refugees

In NPR’s article, “Mosquitoes appear in Iceland for the first time, as climate warms,” reporter Joe Hernandez claims that climate change is bringing mosquitoes to Iceland for the first time in recorded history. Hernandez describes how three Culiseta annulata mosquitoes were discovered near Reykjavík, suggesting that global warming is making Iceland less frigid and thus newly hospitable to these insects. This is false. Mosquitoes don’t naturally occur in Iceland, and the ones that were recently found there were transported via global shipping. So, trade, not climate change, is responsible for Iceland’s recently arrived mosquitos.

Close-up of a mosquito showing detailed features including wings, eyes, and a striped body.

From ClimateRealism

By Anthony Watts

Close-up image of a mosquito on a green leaf, with a bold overlay text stating 'MISLEADING'.

In NPR’s article, “Mosquitoes appear in Iceland for the first time, as climate warms,” reporter Joe Hernandez claims that climate change is bringing mosquitoes to Iceland for the first time in recorded history. Hernandez describes how three Culiseta annulata mosquitoes were discovered near Reykjavík, suggesting that global warming is making Iceland less frigid and thus newly hospitable to these insects. This is false. Mosquitoes don’t naturally occur in Iceland, and the ones that were recently found there were transported via global shipping. So, trade, not climate change, is responsible for Iceland’s recently arrived mosquitos.

The article quotes Iceland’s Natural Science Institute as saying the mosquitoes “appeared to be able to withstand Iceland’s climate” and ties the discovery to a “warming Arctic” that is allegedly accelerating faster than the rest of the globe. NPR even frames the event as another signal of humanity’s impact on the planet, warning that “Antarctica is now the only place in the world believed to have no mosquitoes.”

This narrative, however, collapses under scrutiny. Mosquitoes in Iceland are not a sign of climate change—they are a result of travel and trade. The author admits that “the mosquitoes likely arrived by freight,” noting that there have been previous reports of mosquitoes found in airplanes landing in Iceland. In other words, this is not evolution or migration, it’s importation. Iceland did not suddenly generate mosquitoes out of thin air; it received them via human transportation, the same way other invasive species move around the globe.

Nor have recent temperatures been unusual. Iceland has experienced substantial swings in temperatures over the decades and centuries. Iceland has warmed since the 1990s, following an extended cooling period, which followed another period of warming. Recent temperatures are just now recovering to those experienced in 1930s. Mosquitos weren’t discovered during the 1930s and 1940s warm period. So, why now? The answer is the significant increase in global travel and trade since World War II.

As Climate at a Glance: Malaria and Mosquito-Borne Diseases explains, mosquitoes do not require tropical conditions to reproduce. Alaska—known for its short summers and long, frigid winters—has had enormous mosquito swarms for centuries. The state’s tourism bureau even jokes that the mosquito is “Alaska’s unofficial state bird.” Both Alaska and Iceland sit at similar latitudes and experience comparable summer daylight and temperature ranges. Clearly, mosquitoes can survive in cold climates when certain environmental niches exist, as demonstrated by the Arctic mosquito (Aedes nigripes), which thrives in tundra pools during the brief northern summer.

In fact, global malaria and mosquito-borne disease rates have declined over recent decades, even as the planet has warmed. The connection between temperature and mosquito proliferation is vastly overstated. Public health, sanitation, travel, and trade play far greater roles in spreading mosquitoes than climate.

The truth is, cold alone does not prevent mosquitoes from existing. Many species of mosquitoes have evolved to survive in subzero temperatures by overwintering in soil, leaf litter, or sheltered areas like basements and barns—the same places Iceland’s Culiseta annulata specimens were reportedly found. As the Natural Science Institute notes, this species already lives across Europe and the Nordic countries, often taking shelter “in outbuildings and basements” during winter.

It is also important to note Iceland’s geographic isolation. The island sits in the middle of the North Atlantic, hundreds of miles from any continental landmass, which is one reason why, despite the climatic conditions being hospitable for mosquitoes, they are not naturally found there. For mosquitoes to establish a population there, they would need continuous influxes of breeding pairs and suitable habitats for larvae—conditions that are exceedingly rare given Iceland’s volcanic terrain, wind, and lack of stagnant freshwater ponds. Further, the Natural Science Institute acknowledged in the article that these mosquitoes are “large species present in Europe” and that their presence in Iceland is new—not natural.

The most plausible explanation is that these mosquitoes arrived as accidental stowaways on cargo, likely from the United Kingdom or mainland Europe, and managed to persist through the mild early autumn. This is not evidence of a changing global climate—it’s evidence of an increasingly connected world. It is also not evidence that they or subsequent generations of mosquitoes will survive or thrive there. That will depend on Iceland’s management of warm stagnant pools and pest control measures.

NPR’s framing ignores well-documented entomological research showing that mosquitoes can adapt to and survive in a wide range of climates. A 2022 USGS study titled “Spatial and temporal patterns in Arctic mosquito abundance” — documents routine mosquito populations above the Arctic Circle, again supporting the notion that mosquitoes survive in cold climates. Another peer-reviewed article, “Spatial heterogeneity in the abundance and fecundity of Arctic mosquitoes,” documents mosquito populations above the Arctic Circle and their responses to environmental change

In short, NPR’s article takes a mundane occurrence—a few stowaway insects—and turns it into a symbolic tale of how climate change is causing previously unexperienced deleterious changes. While NPR blames global warming for newly arrived mosquitoes in Iceland, the evidence points squarely to increased global shipping, not melting glaciers.

By ignoring centuries of mosquito history in high-latitude regions like Alaska and northern Canada, and by failing to mention the obvious transport vector, NPR misleads readers into thinking that climate change is conjuring new species from thin air. NPR’s narrative is as false as the claims made by power hungry, progressive politicians that climate change is an existential threat to humanity.

Buzzed Logic: Media Spins Three Icelandic Mosquitoes Into a Climate Story

Several major outlets, including NPR, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, recently reported the discovery of three mosquitoes in Iceland as proof that global warming has arrived in the North Atlantic. According to the coverage, the presence of the species Culiseta annulata “shows how climate change is making Iceland more hospitable for insects.”

Close-up of a mosquito on human skin, showcasing its detailed features.

From Watts Up With That?

By Anthony Watts

A map of Iceland with an inset image of a mosquito, highlighting the species _Culiseta annulata_ discovered in the region.

Several major outlets, including NPR, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, recently reported the discovery of three mosquitoes in Iceland as proof that global warming has arrived in the North Atlantic. According to the coverage, the presence of the species Culiseta annulata “shows how climate change is making Iceland more hospitable for insects.”

Each story followed the same template: a small event, inflated into a global narrative. But a closer look at the facts — and the research on Arctic mosquito ecology — suggests a much simpler, less dramatic explanation.

The insects identified were Culiseta annulata, a species long established throughout northern Europe and the British Isles. As the Natural Science Institute of Iceland itself explained, these mosquitoes can “live in cold weather, usually finding shelter in outbuildings and basements.” That’s an adaptation, not a symptom of climate change.

The Institute also noted that the mosquitoes likely arrived by freight or air transport — not by natural migration. Iceland is separated from other landmasses by hundreds of miles of open ocean, and mosquitoes do not travel across the Atlantic under their own power. The explanation “arrived by freight” is found directly in the NPR story — a line that would normally end any speculation about climate causation.

If temperature and latitude alone determined mosquito presence, then Alaska, Canada, and Svalbard would be insect-free. Instead, these regions are known for their intense summer mosquito swarms.

Peer-reviewed work in the Ecological Society of America’s journal Ecosphere (“Spatial heterogeneity in the abundance and fecundity of Arctic mosquitoes,” Culler et al., 2018) documented large populations of Arctic mosquitoes thriving at average summer temperatures of only 4–10°C. Figure 1 in that study shows mosquito emergence occurring at temperatures barely above freezing.

A second paper, “Spatial and temporal patterns in Arctic mosquito abundance” (Coulson et al., 2022), found densities exceeding 1,000 individuals per square kilometer in Svalbard — one of the coldest inhabited areas on Earth. If mosquitoes prosper north of 78° latitude, Iceland’s isolated incident tells us little about “warming.”

Shipping, Not Shifting Climate

Even the scientists quoted in the news stories hinted at this. In the Washington Post, Australian entomologist Philip Weinstein observed that “even for a cold-adapted species, the harsh conditions of Iceland would make it more challenging for it to survive and establish itself locally.” He added that the species is “extremely unlikely to act as a disease transmitter.” That suggests a transient occurrence, not the dawn of a new ecosystem.

Transport and trade are far more credible vectors than temperature. As global shipping and air travel expand, so does the incidental movement of insects. This pattern has been well-documented in biological literature as “anthropogenic introduction” — species traveling with humans, not with the climate.

Field studies in Alaska and Svalbard reveal that mosquito abundance depends mostly on snowmelt timing and water persistence, not gradual warming. Culler et al. (2018) demonstrated (Fig. 2) that mosquito emergence peaks when surface ponds persist into late July, regardless of mean temperature. Coulson et al. (2022) found that population density correlated more strongly with standing-water duration (R² = 0.73) than with air temperature (R² = 0.12). In short: mosquitoes need puddles, not a specific climate.

Each article used nearly identical framing. The Guardian declared that “global heating makes the country more hospitable for insects.” The Post called it “a development potentially linked to global warming.” And NPR assured readers that “the Arctic region is warming at more than double the rate of the global average.”

Yet all three also admitted that cargo and human activity probably brought the insects there. That contradiction — attributing the event to both transport and temperature — highlights the problem with treating every biological observation as a climate signal.

The Arctic already hosts thriving mosquito populations. The species Aedes nigripes and Aedes impiger have adapted to subfreezing winters and extremely short summers. Alaskans have joked for decades that “the mosquito is the state bird.” That’s not new — it’s natural history.

Iceland’s isolation, lack of wetlands, and oceanic climate have prevented these species from establishing there, not because of cold per se, but because of geography and ecology. One freight container or airplane with a few stowaway insects does not change that fundamental limitation.

Conclusion

Three mosquitoes do not constitute a climate trend. They constitute a data point in the story of global trade and species dispersal. Attributing every such event to climate change risks trivializing both science and journalism.

Real ecological studies from Alaska, Canada, and Svalbard demonstrate that mosquitoes can thrive in Arctic conditions that make Iceland seem mild by comparison. Their success depends on water availability, not climate change.

So when the next headline declares that “climate change has come to Iceland — and it’s biting,” it might be worth remembering: sometimes a mosquito is just a mosquito, and sometimes, the story got there by cargo plane.

Iceland, Mosquitoes, Climate Change, and Media Unibrows

Those who are today ignorant of natural history are not condemned to say stupid things tomorrow. They are able to avoid the risk of doing so by taking the trouble to educate themselves, just a bit. But why would they, when the only disapprobation for their effluvium comes from people who can be safely ignored, i.e. climate denialists?

Close-up of a mosquito resting on human skin.

From Climate Scepticism

By Jit

Those who are today ignorant of natural history are not condemned to say stupid things tomorrow. They are able to avoid the risk of doing so by taking the trouble to educate themselves, just a bit. But why would they, when the only disapprobation for their effluvium comes from people who can be safely ignored, i.e. climate denialists?

A few days ago, came the news that a mosquito had been found on Iceland for the first time. This factoid rather predictably instantly mutated into a story that we have heard before, in fact one that makes the internet a terribly dull place because of its ubiquity: “See! Something bad has happened, and it’s all your fault, scum who live in relative luxury in Western democracies!”

Naturally, the mosquito in question, or rather the team of three that abseiled into someone’s garden near Reykjavik (all right, they flew in), could only have come there because of the “climate crisis.” It was quite obvious that no mosquitoes had ever colonised a new place before the “climate crisis” got its start, and it was equally clear that Iceland was far too cold until last week for the happy little biters to thrive there. Or perhaps it didn’t matter. If blaming the “climate crisis” for this episode garnered a few clicks, then the reality was really neither here nor there.

The story as related by the BBC, and reported here by Mark:

Headline about mosquitoes found in Iceland for the first time after record heat

Well, if there is any hesitance in drawing a line between climate change and the mosquitoes, I can’t see it there. The essentials of the story, in bullets:

  • Some guy in Iceland, roping for moths, caught three mosquitoes
  • He sent them to an entomologist, who identified them as Culiseta annulata
  • Iceland is cold and has no stagnant water so has been protected against mosquitoes hitherto
  • BUT this year multiple warm records were broken in Iceland
  • The changes are global, and affecting sensitive systems
  • The situation will have to be monitored to see if the mosquitoes are established
  • The guy who found them speculated that they might have come from shipping at the nearby port.

I think that last part was probably the only sensible moment. Up until that point, the chain of reasoning was childlike. But it wasn’t just the BBC. Oh no. It was all over the place, not that I read any of the stories. Well, I opened this one, which looks like it was written by an AU (an Artificial Unintelligence):

Headline about researchers discovering disease-carrying mosquitoes in a new region, with a quote expressing initial suspicion.

Here are a couple of others.

News headlines discussing the discovery of mosquitoes in Iceland, highlighting concerns over climate change.

I know what you’re thinking: in a minute, Jit is going to explain just why this is so dumb.

Well, all right then.

There’s something of a clue in one of those headlines. The middle one. “The last fortress has fallen.” Iceland is the last fortress? It’s not the coldest place, surely? [Let us not count Antarctica.] Anyone would think that there must be mosquitoes in colder places than Iceland, at least if the “last fortress” portentous lingo has the remotest basis in fact? Greenland, for example. It’s pretty cold, isn’t it? The pesky blighters must have already jumped there, thanks to the “climate crisis”?

I am going to quote now from a 19th century account of an encounter with Greenlandish mosquitoes.

This morning, too, we were visited by a still less welcome guest. I awoke to find myself scratching my face vigorously and to see the whole tent full of mosquitoes. We had begun by taking great pleasure in the company of these creatures on the occasion of our first landing on the Greenland coast, but this day cured us completely of any predilections in that way, and if there is a morning of my life on which I look back with unmitigated horror, it is the morning which I now record. I have not ceased to wonder indeed that we retained our reason. As soon as I woke I put on my clothes with all speed and rushed out into the open air to escape my tormentors. But this was but transferring myself from the frying pan to the fire. Whole clouds of these bloodthirsty demons swooped upon my face and hands, the latter being at once covered with what might well have passed for rough woollen gloves.

But breakfast was our greatest trial, for when one cannot get a scrap of food into one’s mouth except it be wrapped in a mantle of mosquitoes, things are come to a pretty pass indeed. We fled to the highest point of rock which was to hand, where a bitter wind was blowing and where we hoped to be allowed to eat our breakfast in peace, and enjoy the only pleasure of the life we led. We ran from one rock to another, hung our handkerchiefs before our faces, pulled down our caps over our necks and ears, struck out and beat the air like lunatics, and in short fought a most desperate encounter against these overwhelming odds, but all in vain. Wherever we stood, wherever we walked or ran, we carried with us, as the sun his planets, each our own little world of satellites, until at last in despair we gave ourselves over to the tormentors, and falling prostrate where we stood suffered our martyrdom unresistingly while we devoured food and mosquitoes with all possible despatch.

You may take five points (points, not pints) if you know or can surmise the author of that passage.

Now, the species in question on the east coast of Greenland was not C. annulata. That I grant. But it was a ferocious biter, now known as Aedes nigripes (it has had a few other names before settling on its presently-preferred one). This beast is found as far north on land as it is possible to go, more or less. For example, Corbet & Downe (1966) found it at 81º49’ on Ellesmere Island, in swarms. It is a species of mosquito that is well adapted to life in the Arctic. It has a single generation per year. The eggs hatch when ponds melt. The larvae develop in the short summer, and the adults emerge, feed on blood if they can find it or nectar if not, then lay eggs. It is in the very cold-hardy egg stage that they survive the winter. And the eggs will not hatch unless they have been through a very cold spell. Some mosquito eggs hatch in 24 hours, but as you might imagine, hatching out in August in Greenland would not be an optimal strategy. So they are adapted to wait until spring to hatch. Their blood meal comes from whatever warm-blooded animal is available, and on Greenland and Ellesmere Island that includes musk oxen, as well as other mammals and birds.

It’s a mosquito that is well adapted to Greenland, and it would be well adapted to the climate of Iceland, if it arrived there now. Iceland is famously home to only one native mammal, the Arctic fox. There are no herds of musk oxen there. So perhaps A. nigripes has been to Iceland but failed to thrive owing to a lack of blood meals (although note as implied above that this species is autogenic, that is, it can produce (some) eggs without a blood meal). The distance between the two countries is relatively small – fortunately for the Icelanders, mosquitoes are terrible fliers.

Unfortunately, less specialised types often find their resting places or larval development places transported around the globe by humans – such as was discovered last week with the sudden appearance of C. annulata in Iceland. In 420 ppm CO2, but no human civilisation, there is not a chance that this mosquito could have made the trip from mainland Europe.

The presence of three individuals probably indicates local breeding. But there is a world of difference between breeding for a generation in Iceland’s summer (record-breaking or otherwise) and surviving its winter. C. annulata does not have a cold-hardy egg stage. It is more or less a continuous breeder. Now, as well as occurring in climes that are warm all year round, it does occur in parts of Europe that get pretty cold in winter. Here, it overwinters as adults in damp places including caves, where the temperature is cold, but not freezing, and is also fairly stable. On Iceland, it could only survive in caves or in artificial places that are neither too hot (homes) or too cold (industrial units). Such places probably exist. So I would not say unequivocally that there is zero chance that C. annulata will become a resident on Iceland.

So, to summarise:

  • Iceland has been warm enough for mosquitoes (albeit a different species) for thousands of years
  • The new record has arisen because the mosquito was transferred to Iceland via shipping
  • The species recorded is not adapted to Arctic conditions, but there is a chance it will persist.
  • If the Greenland mosquito ever gets established on Iceland, the locals will wish that it hadn’t.

/message ends

============

Quiz answer: Fridtjof Nansen, “The First Crossing of Greenland.” Of course, he actually wrote it in Norwegian. What I quoted was translated to English by Hubert Gepp.

Reference: Corbet, P. S., & Downe, A. E. R. (1966). Natural hosts of mosquitoes in northern Ellesmere Island. Arctic, 153-161.

Carbon Capture Scam Does Not Even Offset Its Own Emissions

This is a remarkable story coming out of Iceland, and a warning for Net Zero zealots wanting us to go down the same route

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Paul Weldon

This is a remarkable story coming out of Iceland, and a warning for Net Zero zealots wanting us to go down the same route:

Climeworks in Iceland has only captured just over 2,400 carbon units since it began operations in the country in 2021, out of the twelve thousand units that company officials have repeatedly claimed the company’s machines can capture. This is confirmed by figures from the Finnish company Puro.Earth on the one hand and from the company’s annual accounts on the other. Climeworks has made international news for capturing carbon directly from the atmosphere. For this, the company uses large machines located in Hellisheiði, in South Iceland. They are said to have the capacity to collect four thousand tons of CO2 each year directly from the atmosphere.

According to data available to Heimildin, it is clear that this goal has never been achieved and that Climeworks does not capture enough carbon units to offset its own operations, emissions amounting to 1,700 tons of CO2 in 2023. The emissions that occur due to Climeworks’ activities are therefore more than it captures. Since the company began capturing in Iceland, it has captured a maximum of one thousand tons of CO2 in one year.

Read the full story here.

Let’s be clear – we are not talking about conventional carbon capture, the sort that Miliband wants to waste £22 billion on – capturing carbon dioxide from power stations and factories which emit the stuff.

Climeworks are into Direct Air Capture, DAC, which the CCC say we will need to offset CO2 emissions that we cannot totally eliminate.

DAC is an unproven process at scale, but will almost certainly be unimaginably expensive. In particular, DAC needs phenomenal amounts of energy, which itself produces CO2 emissions one way or another.

You might wonder why or how Climeworks are even doing this. The answer is carbon credits, as the article explains:

A professor of environmental and civil engineering at Stanford University in California says the carbon capture and disposal industry is a scam and is causing harm when it comes to climate solutions. More than 20,000 people pay Climeworks monthly for CO2 capture. A retired scientist in the UK says he feels like a gullible idiot after buying carbon credits from Climeworks, which he hopes to receive in about six years. However, the wait will be much longer unless significant progress is made in capturing carbon quickly. He can therefore expect to receive the two tonnes – which he has already paid for – in a few decades at the earliest.

Climeworks has sold a significant amount of carbon credits. They are not only credits that have already been certified and captured, but also a large amount of credits that Climeworks plans to capture in the future. According to the company, one third of all the credits that the Mammoth capture plant is expected to capture from the atmosphere over the next 25 years have already been sold. About 21 thousand people have a subscription with the company, where they pay monthly for the capture and disposal of carbon credits. The waiting time to receive these carbon credits can be up to six years, according to the company’s terms. If Climeworks’ capture figures do not improve, the wait could extend from years to decades.

In short, the whole thing is a crooked scam. And those who have fallen for it through their wish to virtue signal deserve no sympathy.

A Bit Of Perspective Goes A Long Way

The world’s largest CO2-capture plant just went into operation in Iceland, built by a company called “Climeworks”. You can read about it at their site.

FILE PHOTO: A facility for capturing CO2 from air of Swiss Climeworks AG is placed on the roof of a waste incinerating plant in Hinwil, Switzerland July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

From Watts Up With That?

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach (@WEschenbach on eX-Twitter)

Perspective is everything.

The world’s largest CO2-capture plant just went into operation in Iceland, built by a company called “Climeworks”. You can read about it at their site.

Here’s a description:

“According to Climeworks’ estimates, Mammoth boasts an impressive annual capacity of capturing 36,000 tons of CO2. To put this into perspective, this is equivalent to neutralizing the emissions from approximately 7,800 gasoline-powered vehicles.”

Sounds impressive, huh? Same as taking 7,800 cars off the road? WOW!

However, to return to the question of perspective, how many giant plants of this size would we need to neutralize the annual global CO2 emissions, which are currently about 38 gigatonnes of CO2?

Why , a mere ONE MILLION EQUALLY LARGE PLANTS would do it … should be no problem, right?

I mean, if we could build one of these suckers per week, that would only take us … hang on, let’s see … carry over what sums to greater than 9, divide by pi, take the square root, allow for Cook’s Factor, this math stuff is tough … that would only take us 19,231 years to complete the project.

And how much energy does it require? The builders are VERY tight-lipped about this, but typically such plants require about 2 MWh of electricity per tonne of CO2 captured. Let’s call it 1.5 MWh per tonne to be conservative.

So to capture all of our emissions would require about 50 petawatt-hours of electricity per year …
… and to close the circle and return to the question of perspective, that’s about twice the current total annual global electricity consumption.

This CO2-capture project is nothing but pathetic climate virtue signaling.

w.

PS—As usual, I ask that when you comment you quote the exact words you are discussing. I’m happy to defend my own words … but I can’t defend your interpretation of my words. Thanks.

Discovering New Islands

When I first started studying ecology, the island of Surtsey off the southern coast of Iceland was quite inspirational.

A slight detour

From Climate Scepticism

BY JIT

When I first started studying ecology, the island of Surtsey off the southern coast of Iceland was quite inspirational.

Surtsey rocked up out of the sea in November 1963, and instantly became a mine of ecological data.

Here comes the science part [elementary ecology]:

In ecology, groups of species living in the same place at the same time are called communities. Communities change over time, even if there is no external influence. Eventually, in the absence of external influences, the community in question will converge on something called a climax community, which means that in the absence of external influences, no new changes will occur. Lots may be happening, but nothing changes. In practice this means a succession of species over time, from opportunistic types to more competitive types. If you abandoned London right now, the bare concrete would eventually end up becoming oak/ash woodland, which would be permanent until a new ice age or maybe catastrophic global warming.

I used the word succession there, and in ecology there are considered to be two types: primary and secondary. Secondary succession is like abandoning London. There are already plenty of trees around and plenty of other plants growing in gardens which would form the basis of the first ecological communities after the capital’s abandonment.

The other kind is primary succession, and for that, you need a completely blank slate. You need to start with nothing. Succession still occurs but every part of the community has to find its way in from outside. Such situations are quite rare in the real world.

[End of elementary ecology lesson.]

So, this is where Surtsey is so important, and so inspirational. Ecologists generally have an idea about how primary succession might go, without being able to observe it happening. But as soon as Surtsey began to cool enough for something to survive on it, primary succession began. We had a sterile surface, an island, onto which new life could only arrive by sea or by air.

Since its birth 60 years ago, plenty of ecologists have devoted a lot of time to the study of Surtsey. It has its own research society. Visitors are few, and they have to ensure that they do not accidentally contaminate the island with a new species. [According to Wiki, the first visitors were French journalists, who landed on the island almost exactly 60 years ago (6th December, 1963). They claimed it for France as a bit of a laugh.]

Interestingly most of the early species to arrive on Surtsey would have been familiar to any British ecologist as plants of the strandline – the difference in climate not seemingly too relevant. Later arrivals were potatoes – planted by some boys as a jolly jape and dug up by indignant scientists – and a tomato plant (again via Wiki):

An improperly managed human defecation resulted in a tomato plant taking root, which was also destroyed.

I don’t think they needed to bother there. I can’t ripen tomatoes in my back garden reliably. They ain’t gonna ripen on Surtsey. But the presence of a tomato plant is a useful indicator of a sewage spill on British beaches: worth taking note of when you see toddlers playing in that little stream of water coming out of the storm drain.

The Iceland Met Office has a webcam on Surtsey (available via the Research Society link). This is what it looked like at 3 minutes to four yesterday:

Surtsey is legendary in ecological circles. So it should not be too surprising to learn that this student of ecology was interested to read the news that a new island had breached the ocean’s surface near Japan. Here is a headline from the Japan News on November 10th:

New Island Created near Iwoto Island from Undersea Volcanic Eruption, Japan Meteorological Agency Says; May Disappear as Eruption Dies Down

It would be rather disappointing if the new island disappeared as soon as the eruption finishes. Why might that be? [Caveat: I know nothing about geology. I am prepared to be corrected if I abuse the nomenclature.] Well, when the molten rock hits the ocean water it is immediately quenched and turns to what is basically glass. But this material is not consolidated. It’s in bits. They call it tephra, which comes from the Greek for ash, and it is easily washed away.

But Surtsey is still there after 60 years. What gives? Well, if the eruption reaches the surface, the lava will not be instantly quenched, and may set as fairly sturdy lava flows. The tephra, given time and hot water, can become glued together to form tuff – which is rather more resistant to erosion.[Not very tough. Not granite. In fact it’s soft.] Surtsey has in fact shrunk markedly over the decades, but it is thought that its solid core of tuff will remain resistant to the briny for another thousand years or so. [Other islands in the Westman Isles are of similar or greater antiquity, and have become reduced to stack-like kernels of their former selves.]

After that very superficial overview, I wanted to mention that I had no idea where the island of Iwoto mentioned in the Japan News story was. The BBC covered the story and left me no less confused:

An explosive eruption last week sent volcanic rock hurtling into the sea around Niijima Island, located 970 km (600 miles) from the Japanese capital Tokyo.

Now, I admit to misreading this the first time, and to thinking that Iwoto and Niijima referred to the same island. But they don’t. The BBC was helpful in translating the meaning of the word Niijima as “New Island.” They also said it appeared ten years ago, but that is wrong. Maybe it’s a mistranslation.

The volcanic island was formed 10 years ago. Its name translates as “new island”.

Astute readers, even those with no passing acquaintance with Japanese, might have recognised parts of those two names. [My only knowledge of Japanese comes from watching large amounts of anime, with subtitles on and original voices, but sadly I am not learning much. I recognised parts of the names and merely thought them commonplace nouns that often form compound names. However, looking up Iwoto, I found that it is actually the island formerly known as Iwo Jima.

Everyone has heard of Iwo Jima – I’m sure every Cliscep reader has, at any rate – thanks to the events of February 1945, when the U.S. Marines stormed the beaches of the tiny island. Brutal is not a sufficient adjective for the ensuing fighting. What I was not aware of, or had forgotten, was what happened on Iwo Jima in 1985, 40 years later.

Veterans of both sides, and widows of the Japanese defenders, met on the island to commemorate the anniversary of the battle. Former bitter enemies shook hands and hugged. A monument was unveiled, inscribed in Japanese on the landward side, and English on the seaward side, representing the direction in which the fighting occurred. [This according to Wiki; they might in fact be separate monuments on the same site, and may pre-date the 40th anniversary.]

You can see part of the commemoration here, at the end of this contemporary documentary. [Should take you to the right moment.]

What this rabbit hole reminded me is that there are two kinds of war. The kind that ends, and the kind that never ends. Thankfully the war in which Iwo Jima featured was one of the former.

Iwoto a year ago from dataspace.copernicus.eu:

Iwoto a few days ago, ibid.: