Disappearance of the last tropical glaciers in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (Papua, Indonesia) appears imminent
View ORCID ProfileDonaldi S. Permana, View ORCID ProfileLonnie G. Thompson, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Mary E. Davis, Ping-Nan Lin, Julien P. Nicolas, John F. Bolzan, Broxton W. Bird, Vladimir N. Mikhalenko, Paolo Gabrielli, Victor Zagorodnov, Keith R. Mountain, Ulrich Schotterer, Wido Hanggoro, Muhammad N. Habibie, Yohanes Kaize, Dodo Gunawan, Gesang Setyadi, View ORCID ProfileRaden D. Susanto, View ORCID ProfileAlfonso Fernández, and View ORCID ProfileBryan G. Mark
PNAS December 26, 2019 116 (52) 26382-26388; first published December 9, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1822037116
Donaldi S. Permana
aCenter for Research and Development, Agency for Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics (Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika), Jakarta 10720, Indonesia;bByrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;cSchool of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;
ORCID record for Donaldi S. Permana
For correspondence: donaldi.permana@bmkg.go.id thompson.3@osu.edu
Lonnie G. Thompson
bByrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;cSchool of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;
ORCID record for Lonnie G. Thompson
Ellen Mosley-Thompson
bByrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;dDepartment of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;
bByrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210;
Ping-Nan Lin
Julien P. Nicolas
John F. Bolzan
Broxton W. Bird
eDepartment of Earth Sciences, Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN 46202;
Vladimir N. Mikhalenko
fInstitute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119017, Russia;
Paolo Gabrielli
Victor Zagorodnov
Keith R. Mountain
gDepartment of Geography and Geosciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292;
Ulrich Schotterer
hClimate and Environmental Physics Group, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland;
Wido Hanggoro
aCenter for Research and Development, Agency for Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics (Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika), Jakarta 10720, Indonesia;
Muhammad N. Habibie
Yohanes Kaize
iEnvironmental Department, PT Freeport Indonesia, Timika, Papua 99971, Indonesia;
Dodo Gunawan
Gesang Setyadi
Raden D. Susanto
jDepartment of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742;kFaculty of Earth Science and Technology, Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung 40132, Indonesia;
ORCID record for Raden D. Susanto
Alfonso Fernández
lDepartamento de Geografía, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción 4070386, Chile
ORCID record for Alfonso Fernández
Bryan G. Mark
ORCID record for Bryan G. Mark
Edited by Michael L. Bender, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved November 5, 2019 (received for review December 27, 2018)
The glaciers near Puncak Jaya, Papua, Indonesia, the last tropical glaciers in the Western Pacific Warm Pool, have recently undergone a rapid pace of loss of ice cover and a 5.4-fold increase in the rate of thinning, augmented by the strong 2015–2016 El Niño. Ice cores recovered in 2010 record approximately the past half-century of tropical Pacific climate variability and reveal the effects of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). It appears that the regional warming has passed a threshold such that the next very strong ENSO event, which typically exacerbates the rising freezing levels and associated feedbacks such as reduced snow cover, could lead to the demise of the only remaining tropical glaciers between the Himalayas and the Andes.
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.
tropical ice cores
Papua Indonesia
↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: donaldi.permana{at}bmkg.go.id or thompson.3{at}osu.edu.
Author contributions: L.G.T., E.M.-T., and R.D.S. designed research; D.S.P., L.G.T., E.M.-T., M.E.D., P.-N.L., B.W.B., V.N.M., P.G., V.Z., K.R.M., W.H., M.N.H., Y.K., D.G., G.S., and R.D.S. performed research; D.S.P., L.G.T., M.E.D., P.-N.L., J.P.N., J.F.B., U.S., A.F., and B.G.M. analyzed data; D.S.P., L.G.T., E.M.-T., and M.E.D. wrote the paper; D.S.P., L.G.T., V.N.M., P.G., V.Z., K.R.M., W.H., Y.K., D.G., G.S., and R.D.S. supported the ice core drilling project and collected ice core samples; D.S.P., L.G.T., K.R.M., W.H., M.N.H., Y.K., and G.S. measured the stake accumulation; M.E.D., and P.-N.L. conducted the ice core stable isotope, dust, and chemical analyses; and U.S. conducted the ice core tritium analysis.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Data deposition: The data reported in this paper have been archived at the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) World Data Center for Paleoclimatology: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data/datasets/ice-core; https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/24351.
You are going to email the following Disappearance of the last tropical glaciers in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (Papua, Indonesia) appears imminent
Donaldi S. Permana, Lonnie G. Thompson, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Mary E. Davis, Ping-Nan Lin, Julien P. Nicolas, John F. Bolzan, Broxton W. Bird, Vladimir N. Mikhalenko, Paolo Gabrielli, Victor Zagorodnov, Keith R. Mountain, Ulrich Schotterer, Wido Hanggoro, Muhammad N. Habibie, Yohanes Kaize, Dodo Gunawan, Gesang Setyadi, Raden D. Susanto, Alfonso Fernández, Bryan G. Mark
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Dec 2019, 116 (52) 26382-26388; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1822037116