«Disappear before 2026 or sooner»
Experts warn that Indonesia's famous tropical «glaciers of eternity» could disappear within a few years. Weather conditions due to the El Niño phenomenon could accelerate the melting of unique glaciers estimated at 12,000 years old, and one expert said he was now able to document their «disappearance».
Photo: wikipedia.org/AKBAR-ALI-ASIF/CC BY-SA 4.0 < /span>
Two of the world's few tropical glaciers in Indonesia are melting, and their ice could be gone by 2026 or even sooner as El Niño weather patterns lengthen the dry season, the country's geophysical agency said.
Indonesia, according to Reuters , home to a third of the world's rainforests (after Brazil and Congo), expects the dry season to extend into October as the El Niño climate phenomenon increases the risk of wildfires and threatens clean water supplies.
While the Indonesian geophysical agency has warned that a Pacific weather event could make this year's dry season the harshest since 2019, one climate researcher said it could also endanger the Southeast Asian country's 12,000-year-old tropical glaciers. .
“Glaciers may disappear before 2026 or even faster, and El Niño may accelerate the melting process”, – predicts Donaldy Perman, referring to the so-called «Glaciers of Eternity».
Glaciers, which, according to him, were among the few remaining in the tropics, – these are the 4,884 meter high Carstens Pyramid and the 4,700 meter East Northwall firn (hard packed, granular and partially recrystallized snow) in the Jayavijaya mountains in the easternmost Indonesian region of Papua.
Over the past few years, according to Donaldi these unique glaciers have thinned considerably, shrinking from 32 meters deep in 2010 to eight meters in 2021, while their overall width has shrunk from 2.4 kilometers in 2000 to 230 meters in 2022.
But there was little that could have been done to prevent the decline, the expert said, adding that the event could disrupt the regional ecosystem and cause sea levels to rise within a decade.
“We are now in a position to document the disappearance of glaciers, – added Donaldi, coordinator for climate research at the agency known as BMKG. – At least we can tell future generations that we used to have glaciers”.
In addition to Papua tropical glaciers can be found in the Andes of South America and the mountains of Kilimanjaro, Kenya and Rwenzori in Africa, notes Reuters.< /p>
Indonesia is the world's largest coal exporter and aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2060. Coal power accounts for more than half of its energy supply.
Last year, the Asian country set an ambitious deadline – 2030 to reduce emissions by 31.89% on their own or 43.2% with international support.