Ibel, David; Mölg, Thomas; Sommer, Christian (2025): Surveying tropical glacier change on Puncak Jaya (Irian Jaya/West Papua, Indonesia) in recent years using multispectral high-resolution satellite imagery, publishing updated map of change 1850-2024 [dataset]. PANGAEA, https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.979847
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Published: 2025-03-25 • DOI registered: 2025-04-23
Abstract:
Glaciers have been retreating for many decades on a global scale due to anthropogenic climate change, including the mostly small glaciers in the Tropics. In this paper, we document area changes of the Puncak Jaya glaciers in South-East Asia on West Papua, Indonesia, until the present. The survey was done using using high resolution multispectral satellite imagery of PlanetScope and Pléiades missions from 2023 and 2024. Additionally, we digitized and georeferenced historical glacier accounts from analogue maps, resulting in a new overview map of glacier change on Puncak Jaya since 1850, and some further delineation was performed ranging from 2002 to 2023 to complete the map. The results show a decrease of total glacier surface area by more than 99% since 1850 and by 64% since the last survey in 2018. Current glacier area (in 2024) amounts to 0.165 km². The development of Puncak Jaya glaciers is thus in line with the global development of (tropical) glaciers. Assuming the current area retreat rates to continue, it is very likely that Puncak Jaya glaciers will disappear around 2030.
Keyword(s):
Supplement to:
Ibel, David; Mölg, Thomas; Sommer, Christian (preprint): Brief communication: Tropical glaciers on Puncak Jaya (Irian Jaya/West Papua, Indonesia) close to extinction. https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-415
Related to:
Klein, Andrew G; Kincaid, Joni L (2006): Retreat of glaciers on Puncak Jaya, Irian Jaya, determined from 2000 and 2002 IKONOS satellite images. Journal of Glaciology, 52(176), 65-79, https://doi.org/10.3189/172756506781828818
Permana, Donaldi S; Thompson, Lonnie G; Mosley-Thompson, Ellen; Davis, M E; Lin, Ping-Nan; Nicolas, Julien P; Bolzan, J F; Bird, Broxton W; Mikhalenko, Vladimir N; Gabrielli, Paolo; Zagorodnov, Victor; Mountain, Keith R; Schotterer, Ulrich; Hanggoro, Wido; Habibie, Muhammad N; Kaize, Yohanes; Gunawan, Dodo; Setyadi, Gesang; Susanto, R Dwi; Fernández, Alfonso; Mark, Bryan G (2019): Disappearance of the last tropical glaciers in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (Papua, Indonesia) appears imminent. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(52), 26382-26388, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1822037116
Original version:
Ibel, David; Mölg, Thomas; Sommer, Christian (2025): Surveying tropical glacier change on Puncak Jaya (Irian Jaya/West Papua, Indonesia) in recent years using multispectral high-resolution satellite imagery, publishing updated map of change 1850-2024, Version 1 [dataset]. Ibel-etal_2025_Version1.zip
Coverage:
Median Latitude: -4.048979 * Median Longitude: 137.155466 * South-bound Latitude: -4.057084 * West-bound Longitude: 137.155466 * North-bound Latitude: -4.032768 * East-bound Longitude: 137.155466
Date/Time Start: 1850-01-01T00:00:00 * Date/Time End: 2024-06-29T12:32:00
Minimum ELEVATION: 4000 m a.s.l. * Maximum ELEVATION: 4843 m a.s.l.
Event(s):
Parameter(s):
| # | Name | Short Name | Unit | Principal Investigator | Method/Device | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Geospatial vector, shapefiles | Shapefile | Ibel, David | Satellite imagery (SATI) | ||
| 2 | Geospatial vector, shapefiles (File Size) | Shapefile (Size) | Bytes | Ibel, David | Satellite imagery (SATI) | |
| 3 | Method comment | Method comm | Ibel, David | |||
| 4 | LATITUDE | Latitude | Ibel, David | Geocode | ||
| 5 | Latitude 2 | Latitude 2 | Ibel, David | |||
| 6 | LONGITUDE | Longitude | Ibel, David | Geocode | ||
| 7 | Longitude 2 | Longitude 2 | Ibel, David | |||
| 8 | ELEVATION | Elevation | m a.s.l. | Ibel, David | Geocode – minimum | |
| 9 | ELEVATION | Elevation | m a.s.l. | Ibel, David | Geocode – maximum | |
| 10 | DATE/TIME | Date/Time | Ibel, David | Geocode |
Change history:
2025-10-30T06:58:03 – Shapefiles were exchanged, see "original version" link for Version 1. A mapping error was found in the historic map used for the generation of the shapefiles from 1850 and 1972 in version 1. To correct this error, a second analogue map was used for georeferencing glacier extents from 1850 and 1972 and, furthermore, an additional 1987 polygon shapefile was created. For the shapefiles covering the most recent years, a minor georeferencing error was also found in the used (pre-georeferenced) satellite imagery and corrected.
License:
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY-4.0)
Status:
Curation Level: Enhanced curation (CurationLevelC)
Size:
36 data points
Data
All files referred to in data matrix can be downloaded in one go as ZIP or TAR. Be careful: This download can be very large! To protect our systems from misuse, we require to sign up for an user account before downloading.
| 1 Shapefile | 2 Shapefile (Size) [Bytes] | 3 Method comm | 4 Latitude | 5 Latitude 2 | 6 Longitude | 7 Longitude 2 | 8 Elevation [m a.s.l.] (minimum) | 9 Elevation [m a.s.l.] (maximum) | 10 Date/Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1850_files.zip | 9.7 kBytes | Digitization and georeferencing of two historic analogue maps, manual delineation of historic extents supported by the use of Digital Elevation Models and high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery (See here for further information: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-415) | -4.032768 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4000 | 4843 | 1850-01-01T00:00 |
| 1972_files.zip | 15.7 kBytes | Digitization and georeferencing of two historic analogue maps, manual delineation of historic extents supported by the use of Digital Elevation Models and high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery (See here for further information: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-415) | -4.032768 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4000 | 4843 | 1972-01-01T00:00 |
| 1987_files.zip | 25.2 kBytes | Digitization and georeferencing of two historic analogue maps, manual delineation of historic extents supported by the use of Digital Elevation Models and high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery (See here for further information: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-415) | -4.032768 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4000 | 4843 | 1987-01-01T00:00 |
| 2002_files.zip | 82.1 kBytes | Glacier extent data provided by Joni L. Kincaid (10.3189/172756506781828818) | -4.057084 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4682 | 4843 | 2002-06-11T00:00 |
| 2012_files.zip | 25.4 kBytes | Manual delineation of high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery using ArcGIS Pro | -4.057084 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4682 | 4843 | 2012-02-26T14:13 |
| 2016_files.zip | 21.4 kBytes | Manual delineation of high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery using ArcGIS Pro | -4.057084 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4682 | 4843 | 2016-05-16T12:48 |
| 2018_files.zip | 17.3 kBytes | Manual delineation of high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery using ArcGIS Pro | -4.057084 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4682 | 4843 | 2018-03-28T12:37 |
| 2023_files.zip | 14.3 kBytes | Manual delineation of high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery using ArcGIS Pro | -4.057084 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4682 | 4843 | 2023-10-10T00:00 |
| 2024_files.zip | 9.6 kBytes | Manual delineation of high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery using ArcGIS Pro | -4.057084 | -4.08859 | 137.155466 | 137.195377 | 4682 | 4843 | 2024-06-29T12:32 |