‘Planetary destruction on fast-forward’: witnessing the disappearance of Indonesia’s ‘eternity glaciers’

Researchers racing to document Oceania’s last tropical glaciers found the remaining ‘eternal snow’ in Indonesia’s West Papua region has lost almost all its ice

• Mapping the last glaciers in Oceania – in pictures

An expedition to document the end days of the last tropical glaciers in Oceania has revealed sombre footage of “planetary destruction on fast-forward”.

The once-mighty ice sheets on Puncak Jaya, a mountain surrounded by dense rainforests in West Papua, Indonesia, have survived beyond projections they would disappear by 2026 but have shrunk to a fraction of their original size.