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| Photo Credit : Olof Sundström & Martin Letzter License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
Puncak Jaya
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In February of this year, the Philippines experienced near record-low temperatures that the country has experienced in many years. With the benchmark city being Baguio, the city's temperature dropped just one degree higher than its coldest morning ever, recorded on January 18, 1961 (6.3°C). At 7.3°C on Feb. 15, 2017, it is the fourth coldest in the city's history [1].
In some areas, certain locals have even erroneously reported a below zero air temperature. One notable news is the one from Atok, Benguet, which was said to have registered -2°C. However, this was officially debunked by the weather bureau [2].
(Yeah, I understand the explanation too; you don't have to tell me.. They are talking about atmospheric temperature and not some soil or any plant surface temperature. And double yeah, frost on the ground can even form if the air temperature is above 0°C, and the range can be as high as 5°C so that you can see icy surfaces even if it is 5°C or 42°F. [3])
I think these types of news pop up every year, and for a generally hot and humid country, that's understandable. There are times when we want some extraordinary news, and of course, some literally cool area to visit. And think about snow too. Snow in a tropical country would be really something extraordinary.
The thing is that there's something in our neighboring tropical country that certain cold-weather loving Filipinos will be envious of. Well, it's not a well-known fact that there's *snow* (?!) in Indonesia, and an even "worse" fact is that there's *glacier* (?!!) in Indonesia as well. (Huh, let me clarify something. Indonesia is sliced by the equator, and then there's this so-called global warming. Philippines is above Indonesia, and above the Philippines is Taiwan. Taiwan is more acceptable, but Indonesia, I don't think so.)
Another neighboring country with snow is of course Taiwan, which is a more well-known fact. So, certain freezer loving Filipinos are getting more convinced that this little country between Taiwan and Indonesia is so unlucky. Ouch. Well, let's just imagine that Mount Pulag did have that much coveted snow centuries ago, and we are quite sure of this given Indonesia's story. Indonesia does have snow in their tallest mountain; in fact, not just snow, but tropical glacier as well. This glacier story is relevant to the point that the world climate is undergoing some change; and let's face it, the world is getting at least a bit warmer.
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| Photo Credit : Olof Sundström & Martin Letzte Puncak Jaya / Carstensz Pyramid Snow Peak License: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs |
Puncak Jaya. Have you heard about this mountain before? The Philippines has Mount Apo, while Indonesia has Puncak Jaya a.k.a. Carstensz Pyramid. Sorry guys; it's not a very accurate analogy because there is *snow* and *glacier* in Puncak Jaya. (Yeah, right; but let me tell you as well that the great *Philippine eagle* resides in Mount Apo; while in Carstensz Pyramid, they only have pharaohs, right?)
Rising at 4,884 m (16,023 ft.) above sea level in the island of New Guinea, no doubt that its peak will catch cold and cough up some snow. Think about Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, and of course, the tropical portion of the Andes mountain range in South America. In terms of glaciers, the Tropical Andes accounts for more than 99% share of the world's tropical glacier [4]. (Not really share, isn't it?) At least somebody threw some minuscule portions to East Africa and the Papua province of Indonesia. (But no one shared something to any part of the Philippines, and that's not very generous.)
In Puncak Jaya, that minuscule share has shrunk dramatically within just one century. And it is very telling in NASA images, comparing 1989 and 2009 glaciated area, how the glaciers have shrunk rapidly within a 20-year period. If the rate is the same, within the next 20 years, e.g. by 2029, it is estimated that all glaciers in Puncak Jaya will be gone [5]. Now, we shouldn't be really envious; we should rather sympathize for that projected loss. (And then lament, for the growing impossibility that there will be a "share-a-glacier" event in the Philippines.)
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| Photo Credit : NASA Puncak Jaya Glaciers - 1989 |
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Photo Credit : NASA
Puncak Jaya Glaciers - 2009
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So how's tourism going on in Carstensz Pyramid? Well, there are mountain climbers the whole year round, but then there are only few days of good weather and it usually rains (or *snows* at its peak) for several hours during the day. (That's not really a hospitable mountain, isn't it?) In some portions of the mountain, air temperature can rise rapidly during the day, e.g. from 12°C to 37°C, and night time temperature at the Base Camp (at 4,300 m above sea level) can fall to as low as – not just -2°C nor -4°C as some highly probable erroneous news from Northern Luzon in the Philippines claimed during the cooler times of the year – but rather a relatively very cold -8°C air temperature for a tropical country [6].
So how about the peak? At 4,884 m above sea level, the temperature can plunge to as low as below -10°C [7], which is already considered cold even at a country that has frigid winters with temperatures falling below -20°C. Those climate data exceed expectations for a tropical country like Indonesia, and even the Dutch explorer Jan Carstenszoon in 1623 was ridiculed in Europe for claiming that he spotted snow in a tropical country near the equator.
(So, there are still lots of instances that the temperature in that mountain is below 0°C then, so why do those so-called glaciers still disappear? I've read somewhere that the factor is not just temperature, but it also includes other factors such as humidity as well. So it's not really climate change, buster, it's just that those stupid glaciers are simply overreacting.)
[1] http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2017/02/15/Baguio-2017-coldest-day-new-record.html
[2] http://www.rappler.com/science-nature/earth-space/161800-negative-temperature-atok-benguet-debunked-pagasa
[3] https://www.weather.gov/arx/why_frost
[4] G. Kaser, "A review of the modern fluctuations of tropical glaciers" (1999)
[5] "Ice Loss on Puncak Jaya : Image of the Day - NASA Earth Observatory". https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=79084
[6] https://www.livescience.com/41314-carstensz-pyramid.html
[7] http://www.carstenszpapua.com/climate_and_weather.html
