glacier funeral
climate-era neologism

- a memorial ceremony held to formally mark the disappearance or “death” of a glacier due to melting, typically as a result of climate change

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PHRASE ORIGIN & USAGE

The term "glacier funeral" originated from actual commemorative ceremonies held for glaciers that have "died" due to climate change. The first prominent glacier funeral was held in Iceland in August 2019 for Okjökull (Ok glacier), organized by Rice University anthropologists Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer, where about 100 people hiked to the glacier site and conducted a ceremony that included poetry readings and speeches.

The phrase combines two distinct words:

Glacier: from French glacier (16th century), from Savoy dialect glacière "moving mass of ice," from Old French glace "ice," from Vulgar Latin glacia, from Latin glacies "ice”.

Funeral: from Latin funus meaning burial or funeral rites.

As glacier deaths—the technical term adopted by glaciologists to refer to a glacier that no longer fits the criteria—increase, glacier funerals have emerged as one way that communities are commemorating their loss. The practice spread after the Ok glacier ceremony, with subsequent funerals held for other glaciers like the Pizol Glacier in Switzerland in 2019 and the Clark Glacier in Oregon in 2020.

The phrase represents a conceptual innovation where funeral terminology—traditionally reserved for human or animal deaths—was extended to natural phenomena experiencing "death" due to human-caused climate change. Ok's story circulated in global news outlets, and journalists were able to intentionally emphasize that Ok wasn't just a glacier; Ok was treated as a lost life, an environment.

"Glacier funeral" thus emerged organically from environmental activism and media coverage of these ceremonial events, rather than from any ancient linguistic tradition. It reflects a modern attempt to anthropomorphize environmental loss and create ritual spaces for what you could now call "ecological grief”.



Helga & Paul Smith

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SYNONYMS

arctic requiem, climate elegy, cryospheric collapse, death of a glacier, disappearing ice ceremony, dying icefield, final frost, glacial/snowfield’s farewell, GLACIER FUNERAL, goodbye to the ice ages, polar passing

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SMUGGLE
 OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“GLACIER FUNERALS have proven to be an effective way to emotionalise and communicate a sense of urgency about climate change.”

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