RIP Reynisfjara: Dramatic coastal erosion at one of the world’s wildest edges

When I saw this news pop up online, it stunned me. Reynisfjara, Iceland’s black sand beach I’ve returned to again and again over twelve years I’ve been travelling to Iceland. The black sand threshold where I’ve felt most alive, studying light from the air and stood humbled by colossal waves, has been transformed beyond recognition in a matter of moments.

It has been a place where I have captured couples exchange their vows, celebrate their engagement, capture brand shoots and above all, share it with some of my favourite people in the whole world.

The basalt columns that once stood, towering over us at the shoreline are now out in the sea. The sand that protected their base, swept away. Walking paths that used to trace the edge of the beach now dangle closer to the waterline than feels safe. Sections of this iconic coastline, a place that lives out in my mind, has quite simply… gone.

According to local landowner Guðni Einarsson, the scale of erosion is unprecedented within living memory and he shares more of his thoughts in this RUV.is article – where you’ll also be able to see photos of the ‘before’ and ‘after’ which is totally jaw dropping

And I basically think I am grieving the loss of this land, this wild edge that had been such a constant.

And here is how you know that I don’t Photoshop my work – but for illustrative purposes, since I’ve not seen the landscape first hand, this whole vast beach is now submerged!

The Wild Edge I Knew

Reynisfjara is woven into the fabric of my work for over a decade. Each time I’ve been fortunate enough to return to Iceland’s black sand beach on the south coast, I’ve wondered what the beach would reveal. Would the Atlantic be calm enough to pop the drone up or walk safely around those hexagonal basalt pillars? Will the light be soft or stark? Would the sneaker waves behave, or would they remind me, as they always do, of their infamous unpredictability?

I’ve photographed it from the air, traced the patterns of sea foam and basalt from above. I’ve stood on that black sand beach in awe of waves so powerful they make the earth tremble beneath your feet. The loud thud as they crash echoing in your chest. We’ve hiked to the top of the cliff that towers above the beach from Vík, Iceland’s most southerly town. I’ve gazed at puffins with their frantic flight, frenetically leaving and returning to the cliffs with food for their young. Feeling totally and utterly alive in the expanse of it all.

But Reynisfjara has always held devastation within its beauty. There have been several deaths and numerous accidents involving rogue waves at the beach. The danger is real. Sneaker waves surge up the shore with unpredictable and terrifying speed, the black pebbles lifting and churning until everything becomes fluid, making it impossible to move, impossible to escape.

I’ve always been acutely aware of this. The way a place can be breathtaking and brutal in the same breath. How quickly conditions can shift, and how the sea doesn’t not temper it’s power.

What Actually Happened

Meteorological and coastal experts point to sustained easterly winds and high wave activity in January and early February 2026 as key factors driving the dramatic change. This weather pattern repeatedly pushed powerful surf against Iceland’s south coast, intensifying natural coastal processes and moving sand and stone far more than is typical for this time of year.

The erosion is so extreme that cliff features like the iconic basalt column formations are now completely surrounded by the sea. As the sand that normally protects the base of the cliffs, now swept away by the wave action.

The basalt columns haven’t gone. But they’re no longer an accessible part of the shoreline. They stand isolated, surrounded by water, severed from the land they once defined.

There are no practical measures available to counteract these forces. The coast is too exposed. The Atlantic too powerful. This really is a reminder of the fact we are part of nature and have to surrender to it.

Links to media reports and photos of the erosion.

mbl.is – Photos: See the dramatically transformed Reynisfjara Black Beach – includes photos and a video of ground and aerial footage that gives a sense of the amount of beach that has been eroded from the path/signage area meets the beach. There is now a significant drop of perhaps 5-10m, but it isn’t clear how much beach has been lost where things are now submerged permanently.

The Reykjavík Grapevine: Part Of Reynisfjara Beach Collapses After Severe Erosion – this article includes incredible drone footage taken out to sea looking back to land. Where you can see now far in the sea now dwells during a very flat calm sea state. I can’t see if this was low/mid/high tide and it is currently waning moon, so not such big tides.

ruv.is – Reynisfjara coastal erosion ‘greater than ever before seen’ – includes an incredible before and after photo of Iceland’s black sand beach, showing the sea right up to the paved area where the parking lot meets the beach!

mbl.is – Rescue operations in Reynisfjörður have ended – an overview of the work undertaken to protect the infrastructure in the area.

mbl.is – 50-60m breach at Reynisfjörður – an article with aerial mapping of the impact of the erosion event & changes to the beach since 1980.

The Science: Coastal Erosion in a Warming World

Reynisfjara sits at a threshold in more ways than one.

Geologically, it’s part of a coastline prone to rapid changes due to eruptions in the notorious Katla volcano that erupts approximately every 100 years and is overdue! When Katla erupts, it brings massive glacial floods called jökulhlaups that deposit millions of cubic meters of sediment along the coast. The 1918 eruption pushed the coastline forward significantly, but erosion has been ongoing since, and the coastline around Vík is nearly back to where it was before 1918.

This is a dynamic, living shoreline. It always has been a liminal space and really defines the wild edge of earth, sea and sky.

But what we’re witnessing now feels different. And the science supports that feeling.

Climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic are linked to coastal erosion, with changes in our atmosphere. Historically tied to increases in the severity and frequency of winter storms and consequently more coastal erosion.

Rising sea levels bring waves closer to shore. Increasingly ferocious storm, fuelled by a warming atmosphere holding more moisture and energy, hammer coastlines with greater frequency and intensity. Iceland’s south coast, facing the full force of Atlantic weather fronts with no landmass between here and Antarctica, is particularly vulnerable.

Though I am sharing about one beach, it underscores an ongoing pattern of impacts we are seeing globally. A planet in flux, where the edges we thought were stable are proving to be anything but.

A Climate Disrupted

The broader climate picture tells a story, but there are details about the climate that I feel are hard to ignore.

As I mentioned, we know broadly sea temperatures are rising. This intensifies storms and increases their frequency. This winter has seen significant disruption to the polar vortex over the North Pole. Warm air from the Atlantic jet stream split it in two, forcing extreme cold into southern North America and Siberia and parts of Europe while leaving Iceland unusually mild.

There was no snow in Reykjavik in January. The last snowfall was December 16th.

Let that sink in.

There was NO snow in ICELAND for at least 46 days.

I don’t know if it has snowed in February up to this time of writing on 10th Feb, but there has been more than a whole month in deep winter with temperatures too mild for snow.

The news articles about Reynisfjara’s coastal erosion speak of weather patterns stuck coming from the east, when prevailing weather usually arrives from the south and southwest. This shift is likely connected to the polar vortex disruption changing weather patterns and seeing them ‘stuck’ for prolonged periods. And biographical accounts from locals who lived and worked this land for decades, states they’ve never seen anything like this in their lifetime.

All of this paints a picture of a climate that is disrupted

A month of unusually directed, strong easterly storm fronts bringing this unprecedented coastal erosion.

Of course, coasts are forever changing. I live by the sea. I studied geography at university. This is something I tune into, my autistic brain constantly seeing patterns, always balancing the truth that correlation doesn’t equal causation.

But there is a lot of evidence pointing to connection here.

The accelerating pace of change and the disrupted weather patterns, as well as the unprecedented nature of what’s happening. These aren’t isolated events. They’re symptoms of a planetary system pushed beyond its normal rhythms.

Reynisfjara is a microcosm. A visceral, visible example of what happens when Earth’s climate systems become destabilised.

And it won’t be the last place we witness this kind of transformation.

The Grief of Impermanence

I see all things in nature as kin. Something we are in deep relationship with. So when a beach that has been part of my adventures, my work, my sense of place over twelve years is fundamentally altered, when it becomes unrecognisable, I feel it as loss.

Not in an abstract way. In a visceral, embodied way.

Iceland’s black sand beach taught me about presence. About reading light, weather and tide and about the humility required to work at the wild edges where conditions are never guaranteed. The thin line between wonder and danger.

And now it’s gone. Or at least, the version of it I knew is gone.

There’s a bittersweet element to this. Reynisfjara was always a place that reminded me nothing is permanent. That nature is in constant conversation with itself, volcanic fire meeting glacial ice meeting ocean surge. Change is the only constant.

I think there is a sense of collective grief about the wider climate crisis. This micro events happening all over the world but when they happen to something so iconic and so loved, it is easy to understand how the change impacts folk. For me too, as an autistic person, I process change intensely. My love and respect of nature knows no bounds and so it genuinely hurts when our actions are impacting on something I care so deeply for.

But intellectual understanding doesn’t soften grief.

What This Means for the Future

The transformation of Reynisfjara is a micro story of what’s happening globally. Coastlines are shifting. Familiar landmarks are disappearing. The places we return to, the thresholds we thought we knew, are being rewritten by forces both ancient and accelerated.

We can’t stop the Atlantic. We can’t freeze a coastline in time.

But we can pay attention. We can grieve what’s lost and we can witness the changes and tell the stories.

We can acknowledge that this isn’t just “natural erosion.” It’s natural erosion supercharged by human-driven climate change. And it won’t be the last place we lose.

Reynisfjara will continue to evolve

Sand may return. The columns may shift now the beach that once dampened the impact of the waves has gone. The black sand beach I photograph in five years will be different from the one I knew, and different still from what it becomes.

All I know is this: I will return to Iceland’s black sand beach one day and I will witness whatever black sand remains. I will read the light, watch the waves, and hold space for what was and what is becoming.

Because that’s what it means to be in relationship with wild edges. Our lives on this planet are the tiniest dots in a vast timeline and yet, we are here bearing witness to these moments.

To love nature as kin is to embrace the understanding that the only constant is change.

Even when it breaks your heart knowing this.

For those planning to visit Reynisfjara, Iceland’s black sand beach, please heed all safety warnings. The beach remains dangerous due to powerful sneaker waves. Stay on marked paths, respect safety signage, and never turn your back on the ocean. Conditions are unpredictable, and lives have been lost here. SafeTravel.is has realtime advice and warnings about the safety of the beach for visitors to use before their visit.

You explore more of my Iceland photography here.

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