James Bond ice cap melting away

The world’s largest ice cap outside the polar regions could almost disappear by the end of this century if global warming develops according to the worst-case scenario.

Vatnajokull in southeast Iceland has been melting at an average of three feet a year since 1996, in part because of volcanic activity beneath it, said Helgi Bjornsson, glaciology professor at the University of Iceland.

The ice cap, which featured in the opening sequence of the James Bond film A View to a Kill, which starred Roger Moore, Christopher Walken and Grace Jones, covers 8% of Iceland’s land mass and is on average 1,300 ft thick, although in parts it reaches 2,900 ft deep.