Reykjavík Grapevine - jan. 2023, Blaðsíða 6

Reykjavík Grapevine - jan. 2023, Blaðsíða 6
 Breaking news: fewer young adults than ever are living at home with their parents … but also more young adults than ever are living at home? How can that be? It turns out both are true, depending on which age ranges you zoom in on. As Stundin reports, the percentage of young people ages 18 to 24 who are still living with their folks was at an all time low of 55,5% in 2021 — that’s significantly down from the high of 62,2% measured by Statistics Iceland in 2016. However, sometime in that five-year span, a not insignificant proportion of those young Icelanders realise they are lacking either the life skills, gumption or the cold hard cash (likely the latter) to make it on their own two feet in the world and the stats begin to tell another story. You see, never before did more Icelanders ages 25 to 29 live at home with mamma and/or pabbi than in 2021, with 22,5% of them still sitting tight in the family abode — which we are absolutely certain their parents love just as much as they do. Just to be clear, we’re throwing these figures out without a hint of judgement. The housing market in Reykjavík is in absolute shambles. Real estate is prohib- itively costly and rentals are too few, too far between and way, way too expensive. It’s no wonder the figures show more adults at home in the capital region than in other parts of the country (where property is slightly less unaffordable). The average cost of a residential property in Reykjavík is up 50% since 2020 and up 20% just since 2021. Adding another barrier for young people to enter the housing market is the fact that, according to Statistics Iceland, some 53.000 dwellings are owned by just 5.000 individuals or legal entities. Give that a moment of thought. That means 14,6% of all housing in the entire country is owned by people or entities who own more than one home or apartment. So how, pray tell, is a 24-year-old middle-class Icelandic person meant to move out when such a large percent- age of the country’s housing stock is in the hands of the wealthiest 10% of the population, who, the data shows, are most likely to own more property than their primary residence? And how, in a competitive market, is a first-time buyer meant to muster up an offer as appealing as those expertly playing Monopoly up and down the streets of Reykjavík? With great difficulty I’m reminded of an out-of-touch campaign run by one of the big banks a few years ago highlighting the stories of bright-eyed young people who success- fully bought their first apartment — huzzah! — only those young people had their down payments topped up by the generous bank of mom and dad. That’s not a scenario that is a reality to a decent proportion of young Icelanders. If we had to venture a guess at who, exactly, it’s not an option for, we’d ballpark it to be around 22,5% of 25 to 29-year-olds. New Housing Statistics Paint A Grim Picture (Of Statistics) The kids are alright. And also not. WHAT THE NEWS!? ASK AN EXPERT Q : When Are The Northern Lights Strongest? Words: Catherine Magnúsdóttir Photo: Art Bicnick The magical beauty of the north- ern lights draws a lot of people to Iceland. In fact, a whole lot of peo- ple plan their entire trips around the forecasted activity. So when are the Aurora Borealis at their strongest? And what, if anything, influences their activity? We went to Marcel de Vries, a meteorolo- gist at the Icelandic Met Office, for answers. “The northern lights are a result of solar activity hitting the geomag- netic field of the earth, which guides the material being shot out from the sun towards the poles of the Earth. That’s the reason why you can see them in polar areas and not, for example, near the equator,” Marcel explains. Put simply, the surface of the sun can be an unruly place, with solar winds and explosions spitting out particles in all directions at very high speeds. If the direction is Earth, then those solar parti- cles enter the upper atmosphere (meaning several hundred kilo- metres from Earth’s surface) and collide with the molecules there. “The sun particles collide with those molecules, creating en- ergy, releasing it as light. So, for example the green lights come from (ionised) nitrogen atoms and sometimes you have pinkish-red lights, which are more from oxygen atoms,” according to Marcel. Things like altitude, particle energy and light wavelength also factor into the colours we see in the sky. The amount of solar activity also depends on the solar cycle — the 11-year intervals at which the sun’s magnetic field flip. That cycle can be observed by monitoring the rising and then falling activity on the sun, mainly through occur- rences of sunspots. On satellite pictures they show up as dark spots on the solar surface, with more spots meaning more activity. Marcel points out that sunspots are relatively cool (in the tempera- ture sense) regions of instability, with explosions on the sun mostly happening around them, spewing a lot of material into space. Currently the sun is on an upward curve of activity, reaching its max in 2025 and promising a continued uptick in northern lights in the meantime. Even with increased solar activ- ity, we’d advise against putting all your hopes and dreams into epic Aurora sightings if you’re visit- ing Iceland for a finite amount of time. The weather and a bunch of other factors will also play a part in whether or not the lights will be visible on any given night. “There are a lot of myths around the northern lights,” Marcel points out. “A lot of people say that it needs to be very cold for northern light activity and that’s not true in a scientific sense, but it is in a more practical way. In order to see the northern lights, it needs to be very clear, without any clouds, and usually if you look at weather patterns, the best chance to have a cloudless sky, especially here in the south-west, is when you have a cold wind from the north. There may also be a lot of northern lights activity when it’s cloudy — you just won’t see it.” Words: Cathrine Fulton Photo: Julia Stiles 6 The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 1— 2023 Stay like a local [ 8 hotels, restaurants & spas in the heart of Reykjavik ]

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