Jökull - 01.12.1999, Page 100

The stories of my relationship with Ragnar, and
those of Pauline and my three sons, as well as many
friends, all of whom have visited Skaftafell and
Freysnes with me at various times over the last half
century, are too numerous to detail here. More rele-
vant to Jökull are my impressions of Ragnar as a nat-
uralist, a glaciologist, but especially as a man, both
caring and resolute.
One of my earliest recollections of Ragnar's acute
interest in and knowledge of „his“ glaciers, stems
from his curiosity with my large surveying aneroid.
He had been explaining that a year earlier we would
have had a clear line of sight from the doorstep of
Hæðir across Skeiðarárjökull onto a notch in the dis-
tant ridge of the Súlutindar. He took me up the hillside
above the farm until he had regained the line of sight;
he then told me that, since I now had the difference in
height from the aneroid and the distance to the notch
and the centre of the glacier derived from the map, I
could calculate the year's increase in glacier thick-
ness. As a cocky young undergraduate I was deeply
impressed!
I was to learn that Ragnar's knowledge of his envi-
ronment was encyclopaedic, something also recog-
nized by Siggi, who visited me several times partly, I
suspect, to use the opportunity to explore Ragnar’s
mind. Since the early 1930s Ragnar had been one of
Jón Eyþórsson’s team of farmers who had made annu-
al measurements for him on the frontal fluctuations of
local glaciers. After Jón's death this task had been
taken up by Sigurjón Rist, who also became a good
friend and advisor: Ragnar was responsible for
Skeiðarárjökull (E), Morsárjökull, and Skaftafells-
jökull (W and E). During the 1952 summer he showed
me pieces of birchwood that in 1937 he had recovered
from an exposure cut in the sandur in front of
Skaftafellsjökull. At that time I had not even heard
about radiocarbon dating and I declined his offer that
I take a piece back to Nottingham (I sensed it was too
precious). It was only in 1987 that I asked if he had
retained any. He smiled and indicated that he knew
that I would eventually ask for it: it was dated to
2020+/-180 yr. BP (Ives, 1996). After his move from
Hæðir to Freysnes he located another, very large
piece, this time from beneath Svínafellsjökull. As he
sliced off a piece for me, this time (1993) he dis-
cussed the wood in connection with an item of folk-
lore his father, Stefán, had told from his early years -
a then old lady living at Svínafell had related how it
was known that many years (ages) ago, the glacier
was much smaller and a birch forest flourished more
than a kilometre above its present (about 1900) termi-
nus. This piece dated to 1690+/-160 yr BP.
Ragnar was acutely aware of the inter-relation-
ships between climate change, glacier fluctuation, and
human survival. Today, he would probably have
something mildly sarcastic to say to those over-fer-
vent scientists, with their incomparable computers,
who so strenuously believe that climate warming is
now occurring solely as the result of post-19 century
air pollution, with no explanation of the comparable
climate cooling that had occurred prior to the 17 and
18 centuries.
From my first visit in 1952 I had been fascinated
with Morsárjökull, its great icefall, and the pro-
nounced twin set of ogives below; this interest was
prompted by Siggi and by Vaughn Lewis of Cam-
bridge University. They both questioned whether or
not the icefalls were completely disconnected from
the lower glacier since only part could be seen from
Morsárdalur: this of considerable glaciological inter-
est because the two sets of ogives were equally dis-
tinct. They urged that I examine the condition of the
icefalls; Ragnar said I should climb Kristínartindar
and see for myself. This I did, with Harry, on 8 July,
1952; Siggi published my photograph in Jökull the fol-
lowing year. For the next two years (1953 and 1954)
Morsárjökull was one of the major objectives of the
University of Nottingham Southeast Iceland Expedi-
tions and four papers were published in the Joumal of
Glaciology (Ives and King, 1954, 1955; King and
Ives, 1955, 1956). Since then I have climbed Kristín-
artindar at roughly seven-year intervals - for sheer joy,
but also to rephotograph the icefalls and terminus.
This has reached the level of obsession such that, in
her urging me to revisit Hotel Skaftafell, Anna María
Ragnarsdóttir will send an urgent fax: Jack, Kristín-
artindar is (are) waiting for you - come! Moreover,
Ragnar had also introduced me to Ingólfur Isólfsson
of Reykjavík who had climbed Kristínartindar several
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JÖKULL, No. 47, 1999