Indonesia has its own ‘tropical glaciers’. But climate change means they could be gone within a decade

Ice sheets in tropical countries are smaller, so more vulnerable. Estimates suggest Papua’s glaciers have shrunk 85 per cent

Aside from any environmental impact, their disappearance would be a cultural loss for some indigenous Papuans who consider them sacred

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Indonesia’s little-known glaciers are melting so fast they could disappear in a decade. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:00am, 14 Dec 2019Updated: 9:00am, 14 Dec 2019

Indonesia’s little-known glaciers are melting so fast they could disappear in a decade, a new study says, underscoring the imminent threat posed by climate change to ice sheets in tropical countries.

As the COP 25 summit wraps up in Madrid, nations are struggling to finalise rules for the 2015 landmark Paris climate accord, which aims to limit global temperature rises.

Thousands of kilometres away, glaciers on a mountain range in Indonesia’s Papua region – and a handful of others in Africa and the Peruvian Andes – are an early warning of what could be in store if they fail.

“Because of the relatively low elevation of the [Papua] glaciers … these will be the first to go,” said Lonnie Thompson, one of the authors of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. “They are the ‘canaries in the coal mine’”.

This summer, Iceland mourned the passing of Okjokull, its first glacier lost to climate change, amid warnings that some 400 others on the subarctic island risk the same fate.

Meanwhile, a team of researchers in Switzerland warned that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions could see more than 90 per cent of glaciers in the Alps disappear by the end of the century.

A glacier on Indonesia’s Puncak Jaya mountain range in Papua. Photo: AFP

Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are driving sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations. Glaciers are also a key water source for tens of millions of people.

Indonesia has its own ‘tropical glaciers’. But climate change means they could be gone within a decade

Ice sheets in tropical countries are smaller, so more vulnerable. Estimates suggest Papua’s glaciers have shrunk 85 per cent Aside from any environmental impact, their disappearance would be a cultural loss for some indigenous Papuans who consider them sacred

Ice sheets in tropical countries are smaller, so more vulnerable. Estimates suggest Papua’s glaciers have shrunk 85 per cent

Aside from any environmental impact, their disappearance would be a cultural loss for some indigenous Papuans who consider them sacred