Visitors on a glacier excursion walk on an iceberg as Heinabergsjökull glacier looms in the background on August 16, 2021, near Hofn, Iceland. Heinabergsjökull is one of dozens of glacier tongues that descend from Vatnajökull, Iceland's biggest ice cap. #

In this aerial view, icebergs float between two giant broken-off sections of receding Heinabergsjökull glacier in a lake of the glacier's meltwater on August 16, 2021. #

Sheep stand near Breidamerkurjökull glacier on August 15, 2021, near Hof, Iceland. Breidamerkurjökull, among the biggest of the dozens of glaciers that descend from Vatnajökull ice cap, is melting, losing an average of 100 to 300 meters in length annually. #

Flowers bloom on yellow saxifrage (Saxifraga aizoides), a kind of succulent plant, on mostly barren and gravel-covered land left behind by the receding Breidamerkurjökull glacier on August 15, 2021. Hlynur Steinsson, a ranger with Vatnajökull National Park and graduate student, has been analyzing the soil near Breidamerkurjökull, which he says is already showing an abundance of bacteria and fungi that are crucial to beginning the process of ecological recovery. Forests once covered the area but were obliterated by the advancing glacier hundreds of years ago. #

Hlynur Steinsson uses a magnifying glass to examine a tiny plant growing on mostly barren and gravel-covered land left behind by the receding Breidamerkurjökull glacier on August 15, 2021. #

Water drips from a melting chunk of ice that originated from Breidamerkurjökull glacier, floated out to sea, and then washed up with many other ice chunks on a nearby beach of volcanic sand on August 15, 2021, near Hof, Iceland. #

Fisherman Vigfus Asbjornsson (left) sorts his catch of cod and pollock on August 16, 2021, in Höfn, Hornafjördur, Iceland. Global warming is contributing to a rise in temperatures in the waters around Iceland, which is affecting the fishing industry. Changing temperatures have a strong influence on where species of fish find habitats, leading to shifts in the fishing catch. One local fisherman said the spawning grounds of the fish he catches are moving farther north year by year. #

Freshly cut hay lies rolled into bales at a farm near Landvegur, Iceland, on August 12, 2021. While climate change is presenting the country with a host of problems, agriculture is benefiting as the warming climate increases natural opportunities for vegetation to grow. #

In this aerial view, native birch trees, recently planted by the Icelandic Forest Service, grow next to a desert of volcanic sand near Landvegur, Iceland, on August 12, 2021. The Icelandic government has pledged to reduce the country's carbon footprint and is investing in reforestation as a means to offset emissions. At the same time Iceland's warming climate is increasing natural opportunities for vegetation to grow. About 25 percent of Iceland was once covered in forests. Over hundreds of years, human exploitation and sheep grazing gradually reduced that amount to 2 percent today. #