Jökull - 01.10.1998, Page 6

servations is, however, not a complete cataloguing of
all available evidence of that kind. The compilation of
the regular observations of glacier variations in Ice-
land presented here is, on the other hand, meant to be
a complete catalogue of the data in the archives of the
Iceland Glaciological Society from 1930 to 1995.
The data published in this paper are available from
the anonymous ftp site of the National Energy Au-
thority in Iceland (net address: ftp.os.is, location:
/publglacierslvariations, files: advret.zip or advret.gz).
OBSERVATIONS OF GLACIER
VARIATIONS IN ICELAND
In addition to the work started by Jón Eyþórsson
in the 1930s, the variations of glaciers in Iceland have
been observed or derived by indirect means by sever-
al other workers. Jón Eyþórsson (1935) wrote an arti-
cle on the variation of Drangajökull from historical
accounts. Sigurður Þórarinsson used information
from annals and other sources to derive the variations
of outlet glaciers from Drangajökull and of south
flowing glaciers from Vatnajökull after 1690 (Tho-
rarinsson, 1943; Þórarinsson 1974). He also used old
historical accounts to derive the variations of
Breiðamerkurjökull which has in recent centuries ad-
vanced over a region which was populated for several
centuries after the settlement of Iceland in the 9th
century (Thorarinsson, 1941, 1956; Þórarinsson,
1974; Björnsson, 1996). F. Björnsson (1998) de-
scribes information from various sources about the lo-
cation of the terminus of Breiðamerkurjökull in this
and the previous century and concludes that the re-
treat of both Breiðamerkurjökull and other glaciers in
the vicinity was very slow during the first quarter of
the 20th century.
Glaciers in Iceland are described in an extensive
chapter in Thoroddsen's (1932) geographical descrip-
- Yfirlitskort.
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JOKULL, No. 45, 1998