The iconic snow of Mount Kilimanjaro, made famous by Ernest Hemingway, will be gone within two decades according to a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, led by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, found that the melting of Mount Kilimanjaro’s glacier cap is physical evidence of climate change.
More than 85% of the glacier has disappeared and more than 26% of the mountain’s ice has disappeared since 2000. The report authors have made the predication, based on more than 90 years of data, that within two decades, and for the first time in 12,000 years, Africa’s highest mountain will be ice-free. The study clearly points to climate change as the culprit.
"The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause," Thompson explained. "The increase of Earth's near surface temperatures, coupled with even greater increases in the mid- to upper-tropical troposphere, as documented in recent decades, would at least partially explain.”
Via Times Online
Show/Hide comment form
