Researchers documenting the last tropical glaciers in Oceania report that glaciers on Puncak Jaya in Indonesia’s West Papua are rapidly disappearing. Coverage from the Project Pressure expedition describes Puncak Jaya as one of the few equatorial mountains still holding persistent ice, surrounded by dense rainforest. Investigators say the ice has retreated drastically compared with historical size and that the remaining “eternal snow” has lost almost all of its ice.
The expedition focuses on recording and measuring the remaining glaciers before they vanish. Reporting notes that earlier projections expected the ice would disappear by around 2026, but that the glaciers have persisted longer than some forecasts while continuing to shrink to a small fraction of their original extent. Researchers are creating a first 3D model of the remaining ice based on field observations, with the aim of preserving detailed records of a rapidly changing glacial system.
All accounts characterize the changes as consistent with warming and the climate crisis and present the work as an urgent documentation effort rather than an attempt to reverse the trend.
