"Almost certainly here and in places other tropical, approximately 30 years in the glaciers will disappear due to climate change," said Lonnie Thompson, who is also a professor at Ohio State University in Timika, Saturday (06/26/2010 ).
Thompson led the ice core drilling research project conducted in 2010 of Papua cooperation Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) with the Byrd Polar Research Center (BPRC) The Ohio State University, consisting of researchers from the United States, Russia, France and Indonesia.
Lonnie Thompson's research group leader for 13 days in three-point glaciers which still exists in Papua is glacier Cartensz, E. and W. Northwall Nortwall firs firs are running low or missing.
According to Lonnie Thompson, for 13 days on the glacier region of Papua, the local glaciers has decreased by about 30 centimeters. He estimates that, each year the glacier Papua missing a few meters.
Lonnie Thompson says, the process of melting of ice on the glacier very quickly Papua result of climatic factors, where each day in the area was always raining.
"True if the glacier here is likely to quickly run out because it rained every day. Rain is one of the fastest weather factor spend a glacier," he said.
During their stay in the glacier region of Papua, Lonnie and his colleagues took samples of 88-meter Ice Core with six ice cores drilled to bottom ice, then cut into one-meter and entered into the freezer to be studied further at Ohio State University in the United States.
The results of this study is expected to be completed by the end of the year 2010 and will be published around June 2011. "The mission of this ice sampling to obtain information on climate that still exists in Papua before the information climate glaciers will disappear all," explained Lonnie Thompson.
He said the average temperature in the glacier area of Papua on the day or night revolved around five degrees Celsius to minus 5 degrees Celsius below 0.
According to Lonnie, glaciers on the mountains of Papua is the lowest compared with the glaciers in other places around the world.
"We've taken all the ice samples from different mountains in the world, where the highest in the Himalayas (the border of Tibet and China) with a height of about 7200 meters above sea level. Meanwhile, in Papua, located at an altitude below 5000 meters above sea surface, "he explained.
Lonnie Thompson says glaciers in Papua research activities can not be separated from the support of PT Freeport Indonesia, a gold mining company, copper and silver, which operates in Mimika, Papua.
"Without the help of Freeport, we could not take the ice from the glacier to be taken quickly by helicopter and then put in the freezer to be sent to research centers in the United States. Employees Freeport also provide assistance to move the equipment for research in glacier area of Papua, "he explains.
source : Kompas
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