Jakarta : Indonesia’s “eternal snow,” Asia’s last two tropical glaciers, are projected to disappear by 2027, the country’s meteorology agency said on Tuesday, as global warming has dramatically accelerated ice melt.
Perched on Puncak Jaya, a mountain surrounded by dense rainforests in Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua, the Carstenz Glacier and the East Northwall Fin are remnants of the last Ice Age and have existed for around 5,000 years.
The Papuan glaciers have undergone a rapid loss of coverage and thickness in the past three decades that will cause the ice sheets to completely disappear by next year, Indonesia’s Meteorological, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency BMKG has found.
“The loss of ice in Puncak Jaya has been dramatic over the last century,” BMKG said in a statement to Arab News.
“Based on current retreat rates, the glaciers are expected to disappear completely no later than 2026 or 2027.”
Around the beginning of the industrial revolution, in 1850, the total glacier area on the Puncak Jaya mountain range was estimated at around 19.3 sq. km. But by September 2025, they had shrunk to a mere 0.09 sq. km.
The two glaciers that remain today used to belong to a group of six, with the other four having completely disappeared.
Though atmospheric warming has been a primary long-term driver of the ice melt, strong weather events driven by El Nino — a phenomenon that causes tropical ocean water and atmospheric temperatures to get warmer — has sped up the thinning of the glacier.
“The El Nino anticipated for the latter half of 2026 is likely to hasten the thaw, ensuring that the current vanishing timeline remains unchanged,” BMKG said.
Rising temperatures have also caused shifts in precipitation, meaning that rain occurs instead of snow, which removes the reflective white cover and directly melts the underlying ice, the agency added.
The thickness of the glacier has been greatly reduced since 2010, when it was at 32 meters, to 22 meters in 2016. The ice thinned to around 8 meters by 2021.
The glaciers in Puncak Jaya are among the world’s last remaining tropical glaciers, with others located in South America and Africa.
The expected loss serves as a “stark warning” for the world, as tropical glaciers are highly sensitive indicators of climate change because they exist at the thermal limit of ice.
“This event indicates that regional warming has exceeded a critical threshold beyond which recovery is no longer possible under current climate trajectories,” BMKG said.
In Papua, the remote Puncak Jaya mountain range is known as Nemangkawi Ninggok, which translates to the “Peak of the White Arrow.” For the indigenous tribes, it is a sacred site.
The loss of the snow-capped peaks therefore represents a loss of spiritual identity, BMKG said, which further warned that the ice melting could also threaten water supply in the mountain valleys and harm bird species and habitats dependent on stable water levels.
“The disappearance of these ‘eternity glaciers’ carries deep consequences,” BMKG said. “The loss of an iconic natural phenomenon … (also) symbolizes Indonesia’s high vulnerability to climate-driven sea-level rise.”
