Friday, July 2, 2010

Indonesia's Melting Glacier

The Indonesian Province of Papua in the Island of New Guinea, has lots of specific natural characteristics, one of which being an all year long glacier on the top of Puncak Jaya mountain.

Unfortunately, due to global warming this last remaining glacier in the Pacific has melted by 60% in the last 40 years, and if nothing change it will totally disappear by 2050.

Please find below more details that I have quoted from The Telegraph.  

Indonesia's last remaining glacier 'to disappear' 

The last remaining glacier in the Pacific will disappear within years because of global warming, scientists have warned. 

An aerial view of glaciers near the summit of the 4,884-metre (16,000-foot) Puncak Jaya mountain in the Indonesian part of New Guinea island Photo: REUTERS
 
Puncak Jaya, in Indonesia, has melted by 60 per cent in the past 40 years. If it continues at this rate it could vanish completely by 2050. 
Thousands of years ago ice covered much of Papua but today the glacier extends across a surface area of just one square mile. 

Glaciologists trekked to the remote glacier on one of Indonesia’s most isolated corners to carry out the first study there since the early 1970s. 

They found that while the ice has been shrinking throughout the last century the speed has increased dramatically since the last scientific expedition.

Lonnie Thompson, who led the expedition, said: “The Papuan glaciers are dying. Before I was thinking they had a few decades, but now I’d say we’re looking at years.”

Glaciers worldwide are in retreat, with major losses already seen across much of Alaska, the Alps, the Andes and numerous other ranges.

The Papuan glaciers are melting quicker than others because they are unique in lying along the fringe of the world’s warmest ocean.

They are important in understanding more about weather patterns as the region generates El Nino disturbances and influences climate from India’s monsoons to Amazon droughts.

Researchers found that the mountain had lost about 80 per cent of its ice since 1936 — two-thirds of that since the 1970s.

13 comments:

Irma Senja said...

selamat siang ^^

mengunjungi sahabat untuk mengucapkan happy weekend ya....

Unknown said...

Halo Irma,
Senang sekali mendapat kunjungan dari anda. Selama berakhir pekan.

Unknown said...

The earth is getting older,and as with everything else we are heading or rather spiraling towards the culminating moment ("zero hour"), in which a string of events finally come together and the end.Thank you for sharing.The pix is magnificent.

rohitkoul.wce@gmail said...

Hi,
Congrats for having such a nice blog..
Global warming is really letting us to rethink about nature as it may result in disastrous things..

colson said...

The icecap on Greenland and the ice in the Arctic is diminishing, the snow-clad top of the African Kilimanjaro is disappearing and so is this glacier. This kind of climate changes did happen in earlier as well.

But is it this alarming time?

Al Gore c.a and the overwhelming majority of scientists think it is. And that it is a man-made problem.

Well if it helps to really change our habits of plundering the earth, destroying it's forests and polluting sea, rivers and air, it would be wise to go with their message.

Seiri Hanako said...

berkunjung pertama kali sekalian follow

(^__^)

Unknown said...

@Umihoney,
The saddest thing is that we human beings played importantant role in accelerating the earth's aging process by destroying nature intentionally such as : massive deforestation, mining, environmental pollution, etc.

@Rohitkoul,
Thank you for the kind words.
We should make people aware about global warming and what it might cause to us.

@Colson,
Yes climate change did not happen just few decades ago but started long time ago, but the speed becomes so many times much faster after massive industrial development 60 years ago.
Now human beings have no other choice but to stop destroying nature and polluting environment.

@Seiri Hanako,
Terima kasih banyak, saya akan ke blog anda dan follow.

Tikno said...

Another evidence for those who are still skeptic against global warming.

Unknown said...

Tikno,
Thank you for dropping by, it's good to see you again.

Anastasia F-B said...

This is such a pity.

Off topic, thanks for your comment on my Monsters post this morning, Harry. I had some serious technical problems with comments but it seems to have been solved, thank goodness.

Unknown said...

Hi Ana,
I am glad to see you again.

Re: Comment in blogger/blogspot
I have been facing the same problem where some comment and reply vanished. Hopefully it would not continue.

Rob Baiton said...

Isn't this the nature of the game? (no pun intended)

Global warming deniers and skeptics will surely point to other reasons why this is happening and will make a case that this would be happening anyways.

The idea that this is all going to culminate in some sort of judgment day in the future is an interesting one, as it shows that even when we are dealing with nature and our human involvement in nature that we seek to attribute that final outcome to something bigger than our collective selves.

In that vein, I often wonder why an omnipresent God who is all caring and loving would allow us to destroy the innocent and destroy ourselves to make a point.

(That's just me of course :D)

sanchit said...

We may not be able to reduce global warming, end pollution and save endangered species single-handedly, but by choosing to live an earth-friendly lifestyle we can do a lot every day to help achieve those goals.

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