Disappearance of the last tropical glaciers in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (Papua, Indonesia) appears imminent

Abstract

The glaciers near Puncak Jaya in Papua, Indonesia, the highest peak between the Himalayas and the Andes, are the last remaining tropical glaciers in the West Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP). Here, we report the recent, rapid retreat of the glaciers near Puncak Jaya by quantifying the loss of ice coverage and reduction of ice thickness over the last 8 y. Photographs and measurements of a 30-m accumulation stake anchored to bedrock on the summit of one of these glaciers document a rapid pace in the loss of ice cover and a ∼5.4-fold increase in the thinning rate, which was augmented by the strong 2015–2016 El Niño. At the current rate of ice loss, these glaciers will likely disappear within the next decade. To further understand the mechanisms driving the observed retreat of these glaciers, 2 ∼32-m-long ice cores to bedrock recovered in mid-2010 are used to reconstruct the tropical Pacific climate variability over approximately the past half-century on a quasi-interannual timescale. The ice core oxygen isotopic ratios show a significant positive linear trend since 1964 CE (0.018 ± 0.008‰ per year;P< 0.03) and also suggest that the glaciers’ retreat is augmented by El Niño–Southern Oscillation processes, such as convection and warming of the atmosphere and sea surface. These Papua glaciers provide the only tropical records of ice core-derived climate variability for the WPWP.

Multi‐taxa colonisation along the foreland of a vanishing equatorial glacier

“…In the tropics, accelerated glacier shrinkage exposes new aquatic and terrestrial habitats, quickly colonised by high‐elevation species. Nevertheless, the imminent extinction of many tropical glaciers (Granados et al 2007, Rabatel et al 2018, Permana et al 2019) will first provoke the loss of glacier‐influenced habitats and associated species (Cauvy‐Fraunié and Dangles 2020, Stibal et al 2020), while also preventing cold‐adapted and/or hygrophilous species from using these habitats as refuges in a warmer world. These effects can be particularly strong in the tropics where the lack of persistent snowfields precludes cold habitats as well as a supplementary seasonal water supply after the complete disappearance of glaciers contrary to high‐latitude regions (Muhlfeld et al 2020).…”

Revisiting glacier mass-balance sensitivity to surface air temperature using a data-driven regionalization

“…This might deliver inhomogeneity in critical parameters from small glaciers that have been losing mass rapidly (e.g. Permana and others, 2019), so that the recorded minimum elevation of one glacier may not completely be comparable to other glaciers. In order to test whether these uncertainties may influence the definition of the optimal number clusters, we ran 100 NbClust iterations using a random sampling of 1000 records from the PCA output.…”

Downscaling CESM2 in CLM5 to Hindcast Preindustrial Equilibrium Line Altitudes for Tropical Mountain Glaciers

“…Most features listed and ELA values come from Porter (2001) and Hastenrath (2009). ELA for Puncak Jaya (Permana, 2011;Permana et al, 2019) is extrapolated from 1972 to 1850 based on Allison and Kruss (1977). Distance from the ocean was calculated using the distance calculator in Google Earth and is listed with a 5-km precision.…”