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Home
| Itinerary | Clean up
Carstensz Base Camp | Testimony & Summit
Pictures | Contact us
| About us |
Will Carstensz glacier be disappeared completely ??As one of the prized 7 summits, Carstensz is considered by most to be the mountain that reigns as the biggest prize in the region and of course the interest of those who would like to climb the highest peak on each of the seven continents. Carstensz peaks are snow-covered, but the lower slopes have lush tropical vegetation. In 1623, It was Jan Carstensz who first sighted the glaciers on the peak of the mountain on a rare clear day. He was ridiculed in Europe when he said he had seen snow near the equator. The great majority of the world's glaciers appear to be declining at rates equal to or greater than long-established trends. Glaciers have been retreating worldwide since the end of the Little Ice Age (around 1850), but in recent decades glaciers have begun melting at rates that cannot be explained by historical trends Since the 1970s, the extents of the glaciers have been monitored by satellites imagery. All evidence from satellite imagery demonstrates that most of the glaciers at the top the mountain are retreating rapidly and some have disappeared altogether in the last 20 years. The tropical Carstensz Glaciers in Papua Province (formerly Irian Jaya), Indonesia are melting rapidly; 80% of their collective area was lost between 1942 and 2000. The West Meren Glacier receded 2600 m since it was first surveyed in 1936, before melting away sometime between 1997 and 1999. Climate change is already happening, but we can strive to keep global warming within tolerable limits if we act now. (Glaciers are ancient rivers of compressed snow that creep through the landscape, shaping the planet's surface) |
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Summiter Carstensz Antonio Garcia |
| Base Camp | Technical Cllimbing | Physical Preparation | Carstensz Glacier |
While the climbing route is free of glaciers, there are several on its slopes, including the Carstensz Glacier, the Meren Glacier, and Northwall Firn. Being equatorial, there is little variation in the mean temperature during the year (around 0.5°C) and the glaciers fluctuate on a seasonal basis only slightly. However, analysis of the extent of these rare equatorial glaciers from historical records show significant retreat since the 1850s, indicating a regional warming of around 0.6°C per century between 1850 and 1972.