__NOTOC__ Hofsjökull ( Icelandic: "

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

glacier", ) is the third largest

ice cap In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description By definition, ice caps are not constrained by topogra ...

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

after

Vatnajökull Vatnajökull ( Icelandic pronunciation: , literally "Glacier of Lakes"; sometimes translated as Vatna Glacier in English) is the largest and most voluminous ice cap in Iceland, and the second largest in area in Europe after the Severny Island i ...

and Langjökull and covers the largest active

central volcano A central volcano is a type of volcano formed by basalts and silica-rich volcanic rocks. They contain very few or no volcanic rocks of intermediate composition, such that they are chemically bimodal volcanism, bimodal. Large silicic eruptions at c ...

in the country, which has the same name. It is situated in the west of the

Highlands of Iceland The Highland (Icelandic language, Icelandic: ''Hálendið)'' or The Central Highland is an area that comprises much of the interior land of Iceland. The Highland is situated above and is mostly uninhabitable. The soil is primarily volcanic as ...

and north of the mountain range Kerlingarfjöll, between the two largest glaciers of Iceland.

Glacier

It covers an area of , with the icecap top being , and bottom being at about . There are other summits relating to the underlying volcano with two being at . Hofsjökull is the source of several rivers including the

Þjórsá Þjórsá () is Iceland's longest river at . It is in the south of the island. Þjórsá is a glacier river and has its source on the glacier Hofsjökull. It flows out through narrow gorges in the highlands of Iceland. Further downstream, a ...

, Iceland's longest river.

Changes

While all ice caps in Iceland have been losing volume since 1995, due to high

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

in 2015 and low

ablation Ablation ( – removal) is the removal or destruction of something from an object by vaporization, chipping, erosion, erosive processes, or by other means. Examples of ablative materials are described below, including spacecraft material for as ...

during the previous cool summer, the Hofsjökull ice cap increased in mass, the first time in 20 years this had happened. Between 1989 and 2015, even allowing for that last years increase, the icecap had lost about 12% of its 1989 volume which is close to of ice. Hofsjökull has been modelled to lose all its ice in about 200 years from studies using data between 1980 and 2005. Run off into the draining rivers is modelled to increase by about 50% by 2100 before decreasing due to diminishing area of the ice caps.

Volcano

The subglacial volcano is a central volcano with a

caldera A caldera ( ) is a large cauldron-like hollow that forms shortly after the emptying of a magma chamber in a volcanic eruption. An eruption that ejects large volumes of magma over a short period of time can cause significant detriment to the str ...

. Beyond the central volcano are fissure systems which include to the south the Kerlingarfjöll central volcano.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * *

External links

Hofsjökull
in the Catalogue of Icelandic Volcanoes
(Photo)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hofsjokull Highlands of Iceland Mid-Iceland Belt Subglacial volcanoes of Iceland Glaciers of Iceland Volcanic systems of Iceland Calderas of Iceland Central volcanoes of Iceland