West Northwall Firn, Glacier on Mount Carstensz, Sudirman Range, Indonesia
West Northwall Firn was a glacier on Mount Carstensz in the Sudirman Range, situated between 4,600 and 4,750 meters (15,100 and 15,600 feet) in elevation. The ice field occupied a small area within this high mountain terrain and formed part of the broader glaciated zone on the peak.
The ice field developed roughly 5,000 years ago as part of a larger icecap but gradually separated from the adjacent East Northwall Firn between 1936 and 1962. This fragmentation reflected the longer-term transformations affecting tropical glaciers in the region.
Scientists regularly monitored this glacier to study climate patterns and environmental changes in tropical mountain regions of Indonesia.
The ice field was located on the northwestern side of Mount Carstensz, near Puncak Jaya, the highest peak in Oceania. Access required alpine climbing skills and acclimatization to the extreme altitude and tropical mountain environment.
In the early 2010s the ice was about 32 meters (105 feet) thick but thinned by roughly 7 meters (23 feet) each year. The entire mass vanished by 2017, leaving only bare rock and debris on the mountainside.
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