the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 05 Mar 2025
Brief communication: Tropical glaciers on Puncak Jaya (Irian Jaya/West Papua, Indonesia) close to extinction
Abstract. Glaciers have been retreating for many decades on a global scale due to anthropogenic climate change, including the mostly small glaciers in the Tropics. In this brief report, we document area changes of the Puncak Jaya glaciers in South-East Asia on West Papua, Indonesia, until the present. The survey was based on high resolution multispectral satellite imagery of PlanetScope and Pléiades missions from 2023 and 2024. Additionally, we digitized and georeferenced historical glacier accounts from analogue maps, resulting in a new overview map of glacier change on Puncak Jaya since 1850 (DOI requested from Pangäa). The results show a decrease of total glacier surface area by more than 99 % since 1850 and by 64 % since the last survey in 2018. Current glacier area (in 2024) amounts to 0.165 km2. The development of Puncak Jaya glaciers is thus in line with the global shrinkage of (tropical) glaciers. Assuming the current area retreat rates to continue, it is very likely that Puncak Jaya glaciers will disappear around 2030.
Competing interests: At least one of the (co-)authors is a member of the editorial board of The Cryosphere.
Publisher's note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims made in the text, published maps, institutional affiliations, or any other geographical representation in this preprint. The responsibility to include appropriate place names lies with the authors.- Preprint
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Status: open (until 16 Apr 2025)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-415', Mauri Pelto, 30 Mar 2025
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Ibel et al (2025) provide a useful updated chronology of glacier extent changes from 1850-2024 of Puncak Jaya glaciers. The recent rapid area loss from 2018-2024 is important to document now. I encourage the author to discuss whether the remnants of ice are glaciers or relict ice, this includes visual observations that may distinguish. For the reader it will be valuable to include a high-resolution image that is not annotated or colorized, whether as an additional figure on an additional section of a figure, In the conclusion zoom back out to report on how this change in the last decade fits that of other glaciers in this latitude band.
Specific Comments:
7: Reword to be more accurate, recognizing that in many regions including New Zealand, Norway, Western North America and the European Alps glaciers did advance during portions 1950-1990s period. Hence it has not been many decades at a global scale. “Glaciers have been retreating for the last several decades on a global scale due to anthropogenic climate change, including the mostly small glaciers in the Tropics.
9-12: Reword this is the abstract where sources/methods need not be reviewed. “The survey was based on recent 2023 and 2024 high resolution multispectral satellite imagery of PlanetScope and Pléiades missions, that were compared with digitized and georeferenced historical glacier extent, resulting in a new overview map of glacier change on Puncak Jaya since 1850.”
17: The first paragraph discusses global temperature and regional temperatures. The focus of the paper is glacier change start your introduction with paragraph 2 and move the temperature portion down.
Figure 2: Include a PlanetScope or Pléiades image, without the annotated coloring for the reader to be able to see the actual relict ice/glacier character. Given how cloudy the region is, such imagery would be a rare view for the community.
170: Please move at least a condensed version of Table S1 into the main paper, leaving out years with limited observations. All the information in Table S5 can be put into this table as well. It is important to reference in the text here the area change of individual glaciers vs just the overall glacier area loss.
199: Given the limited area and volume are any of the remaining four ice masses in Figure 2 still glaciers? Any evidence of movement from repeat imagery or crevassing? Either way please indicate that this may just be relict ice and not glaciers anymore. All ice will vanish by 2030, though the glaciers may well be gone now. The ice thickness is referenced in line 127, with your high resolution imagery, are there any indications or estimates of ice thickness?
218: For the remaining ice the orientation is indicated as being an important component is preservation. Is there any evidence of accumulation enhancement via wind drifting or avalanching.
249: The paper begins appropriately discussing tropical glacier change. It is worth adding here other glaciers lost or nearly gone in this latitude belt. The World Glacier Monitoring Service reported that Conejeras Glacier, Colombia 4.8 N ceased to exist in 2024.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-415-RC1
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