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Nov-04-2009Mt. Kilimanjaro Ice Cap Continues Rapid Retreat(topic overview)
CONTENTS:
- In the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, climatologists reported that the ice cap crowning Kilimanjaro'''s peak shrank by some 85 in the nearly hundred years between 1912 and 2007.'' (More...)
- Even a 300-year-long drought around 4,200 years ago made little impact on the mountain's ice fields. (More...)
- As Kilimanjaro's glaciers thin, retreat and break into smaller pieces, the dark rocks surrounding the remaining ice will absorb more sunlight and heat up, accelerating the melting trend, says Thompson. (More...)
- Sublimation is the reduction of ice and snow in a cold dry climate. (More...)
- Melting is occurring on Mount Kenya, the Rwenzori Mountains in central Africa, as well as on tropical glaciers high in the Andes andHimalayas. (More...)
- The glacier atp Kilimanjaro is believed to have formed around 11,000 years ago during a wet period in eastern Africa. (More...)
- Since 2000, the plateau's three remaining ice fields have shrunk by 26 percent, scientists found. (More...)
- The examination of other tropical glaciers in South America, Asia and Oceania has revealed similar loss of glacial ice. (More...)
- The study shows that rising temperatures play a part in the glacier'''s drier and less cloudy conditions and are also contributing to sublimation and melting of the glaciers. (More...)
- There is no claim that will happen. (More...)
- Large numbers of people rely on mountain glaciers for a regular supply of water or hydroelectric power throughout the year. (More...)
- A study published by the Overseas Development Institute in January estimated that 35,000 to 40,000 people visit Kilimanjaro every year, spending almost $50 million annually in the country. (More...)
- A repeal in New England, the corner of the country most receptive to same-sex marriage would be a jolting setback for the gay-rights movement and mark the first time voters overturned a gay-marriage law enacted by a legislature. (More...)
- Researchers have pinned the cause on increasing Earth surface temperatures that get affect high altitudes badly. (More...)
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In the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, climatologists reported that the ice cap crowning Kilimanjaro'''s peak shrank by some 85 in the nearly hundred years between 1912 and 2007.'' Even more disturbing,'' however, is the fact that 26 percent of the reduction occurred in the short period from 2000 to 2007 ''' an acceleration which they believe has been caused predominantly by global warming. '''This is the first time researchers have calculated the volume of ice lost from the mountain'''s ice fields,''' explained Lonnie Thompson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University and co-author of the study. [1] Mount Kilimanjaro is Africa's highest peak, and used to be covered in snow throughout the year despite its proximity to the equator. The ill-effects of global warming however, have put up a drastic picture of the mountain, whose slopes went ice-free this year; probably for the first time in 12,000 years. According to a study that is based on terrestrial and satellite photographs, and has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the mountain is rapidly losing its glaciers.[2]
The findings point to the rise in global temperatures as the most likely cause of the ice loss. Changes in cloudiness and precipitation may have also played a smaller, less important role, especially in recent decades, they added. "If you look at the percentage of volume lost since 2000 versus the percentage of area lost as the ice fields shrink, the numbers are very close," he said in the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While the yearly loss of the mountain glaciers is most apparent from the retreat of their margins, Thompson said an equally troubling effect is the thinning of the ice fields from the surface. The summits of both the Northern and Southern Ice Fields atop Kilimanjaro have thinned by 1.9 meters (6.2 feet) and 5.1 meters (16.7 feet) respectively.[3] For the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers used maps, aerial photographs, and satellite images to track the ice's retreat over the last century, and also looked at data from instruments implanted in the glaciers in 2000. Some previous researchers have argued that Kilimanjaro's glaciers are disappearing because of what they viewed as local factors, namely less snowfall and more sublimation, which turns ice directly into water vapor. Thompson found that higher temperatures are melting the ice, and he also argues that the drier and less cloudy conditions leading to sublimation on Tanzania's Kilimanjaro are part of a suite of changes driven by global warming. "You change the temperature profile of this planet, you are going to change precipitation and cloudiness and humidity and temperature," he said. "Those are all part of climate change.[4]
The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 1. Chris Larsen, a glaciologist at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, called tropical glaciers like those on Kilimanjaro the "drama queens" of the glacier world: they respond dramatically to even slight insults. "When the climate changes, they can portray a bad situation in even worse light," says Larsen. "The fact that these ice fields are now on the verge of ending a 11,000 year existence is quite significant."[5]
Recent field studies conducted atop Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro show that ice loss is proceeding apace on the African peak: More than a quarter of the ice cover present in the year 2000 had disappeared by late 2007, says Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center in Columbus. He and his colleagues report their findings online November 2 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[6] Scientists at Ohio State University collected data on the thickness and extent of the African glaciers by examining core samples and historical documentation. In research published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists report that 85 per cent of the ice that covered Mount Kilimanjaro in 1912 was gone by 2007, and 26 per cent of the ice there in 2000 is now gone.[7]
Some 85 percent of the ice that made up the mountaintop glaciers in 1912 was gone by 2007, researchers led by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University report in Tuesdays edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[8] Now that bit of fact-checking is looking a lot less convincing with the publication of a study on Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Lead author Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University who has been to the summit of Africa's tallest mountain repeatedly over more than a decade, says that while the glaciers did start melting a century ago, their retreat has sped up dramatically in recent years.[9]
The study, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, based on ice-core analysis, confirms that during the years from 2022 to 2033, Africa's highest peak will probably be ice-free for the first time in nearly 12,000 years. Saying that his team examined the volume of ice loss as well as the surface coverage to arrive at the conclusions of the recent study, Thompson added that it was found that not only was the ice diminishing in size, it was also thinning at a fairly rapid pace, equivalent to the volume of its lateral shrinking.[10] Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science the study was conducted by a team of researchers who first measured the glaciers in 2000. They discovered that between 1912 and 2007, 85 percent of the ice that covered Mount Kilimanjaro vanished. When using 2000 as baseline the mountain has lost 26 percent of its ice. These findings are unique in the last 11,700 years: an ice core going back nearly twelve millennia found no evidence of sustained melting until contemporary times.[11] Even 4,200 years ago, a drought in that part of Africa that lasted about 300 years and left a thick (about 1-inch) dust layer, was not accompanied by any evidence of melting. These observations confirm that the current climate conditions over Mount Kilimanjaro are unique over the last 11 millennia. "This is the first time researchers have calculated the volume of ice lost from the mountain's ice fields," said Thompson, a research scientist with Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center.[12] An isolated remnant of an ice spire in the crater of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. (Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University) The ice fields that top Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, could disappear within 25 years because of rising global temperatures, scientists say.[7] According to the findings of a new study, led by glaciologist Lonnie Thompson at Ohio State University in Columbus, the famous snow and ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro will likely vanish in the next 25 years or so, owing to climate change.[10] The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro - the highest mountain in Africa - may soon be falling on bare ground following a study showing that its ice cap is destined to disappear entirely within 20 years, due largely to climate change. The vast ice fields of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are melting at a faster pace than at any time over the past 100 years and at this rate they will be gone completely within two decades or even earlier according to one of the world's leading glaciologists.[13] "In the future, there will be a year when Furtwängler is present and by the next year, it will have disappeared. Thompson's team drilled six cores through Kilimanjaro's ice fields in 2000 and published their findings in the journal Science two years later. That work established a detailed baseline against which more recent data can be compared. Thompson said the changes occurring on Mount Kilimanjaro mirror those on Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori Mountains in Africa, as well as tropical glaciers high in the South American Andes and in the Himalayas.[12] The smaller Furtwngler Glacier, which was melting and was water-saturated when it was drilled by Professor Thompson in 2000, has thinned by 50 per cent in the past nine years. Kilimanjaro is just one of many low-latitude mountains around the world that are losing their glaciers. They include the ice fields on Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori Mountains in Africa, as well as glaciers as far apart as the Alps in Europe, the Andes in South America and the Himalayas in Asia.[13]
The Kilimanjaro glaciers do attract some 25,000 visitors each year, a major revenue source for Tanzania. Hardy, who's made 12 trips up the mountain since 2000, says he's noticed the crowds of summiteers growing larger; he thinks the stampede began in response to the global attention the shrinking glaciers received in 2002, when he and Thompson published their first paper on the subject 2. "The mountain is famous because of its ice fields at the Equator," says Thompson, who added that tourism may dry up when the glaciers do.[5]
Fewer clouds and more sunlight would create a layer of warm air right at the glaciers' surface, which would cause some melting. Most of the ice loss, he suggests, is due to sublimation - that is, ice turning directly into water vapor with no intermediate step. That tends to happen when temperatures are cold and the air is extremely dry, which is the case at Kilimanjaro's higher-than-19,000-ft. summit (it's the same reason ice cubes slowly wilt away in a frost-free freezer). Thompson agrees that this is a factor. "But the idea that at the end of the day, they're sitting in the mid-troposphere sublimating away is false. There are lakes on the surface of the glaciers," he says, noting that summit temperatures aren't so cold as to preclude the existence of water, "and when you drill down, the ice is saturated with water." All of this back-and-forth might suggest on first blush that the scientists are arguing over whether global warming is even happening. That would be a mistake. While he doesn't think Thompson's case is proven, Mote has no doubt that the climate is changing and that humans are largely responsible; he just doesn't think Kilimanjaro's glaciers are being melted out of existence.[9] Scientists believe global warming rather than local weather changes is chiefly to blame for the rapid loss of ice from the Tanzanian peak. A study comparing new measurements with those taken in 2000 show that a layer of Kilimanjaro ice between six and 17 feet thick has vanished since that time. Not only are the mountain's glaciers retreating at an unprecedented rate, but its remaining ice is thinning.[14] Scientists at the University of Ohio claim the reason behind the loss is global warming combined with reduced snowfall brought on by climate change. Their research shows that the melting is the worst in more than 11,000 years, when the ice was formed and is uncovering layers of dust not seen for thousands of years. It has even unlocked radioactive fallout from the American 1951-52 "Ivy" atomic tests that were embedded in the ice.[15] In recent years, much scientific debate has centered on whether Kilimanjaro's ice loss stems from melting due to global warming or from increased sublimation -- the direct evaporation of ice -- due to a climate shift that starved the peak of precipitation.[6]
Glacier experts have been waging an intellectual war for years over what's really causing the ice loss atop Kilimanjaro. The simplest explanation would be that warming temperatures are making the ice melt - and indeed, Thompson believes this is a big part of what's going on. Other scientists insist that melting, if it's occurring at all, has a relatively minor effect.[9] Battling temperatures as low as 35 degrees below zero, and with very little oxygen, Thompson and his crew lived atop Kilimanjaro for nearly two months, drilling and collecting core ice samples buried thousands of feet below the glaciers' surface. The new data shows that both the Northern and Southern ice fields atop Kilimanjaro have thinned dramatically in recent years, while the smaller Furtwangler Glacier shrank as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2009.[16] '''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 the observed widespread similarity in glacier behavior.''' Although the ever-retreating borders of the mountain'''s glaciers are the most dramatic and easily observable changes taking place, Thompson says that he is equally concerned about the less noticeable thinning of the ice sheets.'' Both the Northern and Southern Ice Fields which crest the summit have thinned out by more than 6 feet and 16 feet, respectively. The most alarming loss of ice was observed on the smaller Furtwangler Glacier, which Thompson'''s team said had lost nearly half of its thickness between 2000 and 2009.[1] "If you look at the percentage of volume lost since 2000 versus the percentage of area lost as the ice fields shrink, the numbers are very close." While the loss of mountain glaciers is most apparent from the retreat of their margins, Thompson said an equally troubling effect is the thinning of the ice fields from the surface. The summits of both the Northern and Southern Ice Fields atop Kilimanjaro have thinned by 1.9 meters (6.2 feet) and 5.1 meters (16.7 feet) respectively.[12]
The new results showing how quickly ice is melting on Mt. Kilimanjaro's iconic summit comes from the lab of Lonnie Thompson, an Ohio State University glaciologist who has spent his career studying the climate records trapped in mountain glaciers in the tropics. (For a good read on his work, snag a copy of the book "Thin Ice" by Mark Bowen.) The summit lost 80 percent of its ice between 1912 and 2007.[17] The glaciers atop Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro may be gone entirely in the next few decades, according to a new study. Researchers at Ohio State and the University of Massachusetts have shown that 85 percent of the ice that was present atop the Tanzanian mountain in 1912 has melted away.[18] A detailed analysis of the glaciers on Kilimanjaro by U.S. research scientist Lonnie G. Thompson, of Ohio State University (Columbus), and his team shows that the glaciers on Kilimanjaro will likely be gone between 2022 and 2033. Dr Thompson, an ice core paleoclimatologist, states, "They're being decapitated. They're probably not really glaciers anymore. They're remnants of another climate." The study began in 2000 then the Thompson team drilled cores from three glaciers in order to estimate their age.[19] If current conditions persist, climate change experts say, Kilimanjaro's world-renowned glaciers, which have covered Africa's highest peak for centuries, will be gone within the next two decades. "In a very real sense, these glaciers are being decapitated from the surface down," said Lonnie Thompson, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University.[16] In addition to shrinking in area, Kilimanjaro's glaciers are thinning from the top down, says Ohio State University's Lonnie Thompson, lead author of the new study. "They're being decapitated," he says. "In fact, they're probably not really glaciers anymore. They're remnants of another climate."[5]
A smaller glacier, called Furtwangler, has thinning about 50 per cent between 2000 and 2009. Kilimanjaro's glaciers are retreating at their edges and thinning as the surface ice melts, researchers say. (Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University) "It has lost half of its thickness.[7] The researchers found the loss of glacier ice from thinning is now about equal to the loss from shrinking. "This is the first time researchers have calculated the volume of ice lost from the mountain's ice fields," Lonnie Thompson, a paleoclimatologist with Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center, said in a statement.[7] Even 4,200 years ago, a drought that lasted about 300 years and left a one inch layer of dust was not accompanied by any evidence of melting suggesting the climate at the summit was stable. Professor of earth sciences Lonnie Thompson said: "This is the first time researchers have calculated the volume of ice lost from the mountain's ice fields." He said that the increase in temperatures especially in the mid to upper atmosphere would most likely be the "underlying cause".[15] Professor Thompson said that the scientists have also detected elongated bubbles in the surface of the ice field, which occur when the ice melts and refreezes. There is no evidence this melting and refreezing has occurred at any other period going back 11,700 years. "This is the first time researchers have calculated the volume of ice lost from the mountain's ice fields. If you look at the percentage of volumes lost since 2000 versus the percentage of area lost as the ice fields shrink, the numbers are very close," he said. Data from the ice cores shows that the summits of both the northern and the southern ice fields have thinned by 1.9 metres and 5.1 metres respectively.[13]
While cloudiness and changes in precipitation could be playing a role in the melting, it was relatively minor compared to that of rising temperatures, according to the study. The scientists believe that their findings'''along with studies of other African glaciers and tropical glaciers melting worldwide'''are dramatic evidence of climate change. Along with retreat of Kilimanjaro's glaciers at their margins, the surface of these massive ice fields have begun eroding as temperatures rise.[11] The research blames warmer temperatures due to climate change and drier, less cloudy conditions than in the past. "The climatological conditions currently driving the loss of Kilimanjaro's ice fields are clearly unique within an 11,700-year perspective," said the study, adding that the mountain lost 26 percent of its ice cover between 2000 and 2007.[20]
Previous studies of Kilimanjaro's glaciers have relied on aerial photographs to measure the rate of the retreating ice. For this new survey, scientists climbed the mountain and drilled deep into the glaciers to measure the volume of the ice fields atop the 19,331-foot (5,892-meter) peak. The ice sheet that capped Kilimanjaro in 2007 was 85 percent smaller than the one that covered its plateau in 1912, paleoclimatologists explained in the study.[16]
Thompson's field data, including the pattern and shape of bubbles in samples drilled from the ice masses, suggest that Kilimanjaro's ice only began melting in recent decades. The answer may not make much difference to people who live around the long-dormant volcano, because they don't depend on meltwater from Kilimanjaro's peak to irrigate farmland or supply drinking water, says Tad Pfeffer, a glaciologist at University of Colorado's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research in Boulder. He adds, lessons learned from field studies there could help scientists better predict when glaciers elsewhere in the tropics -- many of which people depend on for water -- will eventually disappear. "Tropical glaciers are shrinking at fast and accelerating rates everywhere they occur," he notes.[6] According to Thompson, 1/4 of Kilimanjaro's ice cap has disappeared just since the year 2000. According to his research, the mountain has not seen melting like this in at least 11,700 years. Thompson says this is not a natural phenomenon. He says it's a manmade one. He says it's being seen on other mountains in the tropics and subtropics as well. "The increase of the 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 (it)," he told the Associated Press.[21] 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 the observed widespread similarity in glacier behavior," Thompson said. Mount Kilimanjaro is both Tanzania's and Africa's tallest mountain rising 5,895 meters (19,336 feet) in the air.[11]
The glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa are rapidly shrinking and thinning, leading scientists to predict that these ice fields could be gone in one to two decades.[22] Boston (DbTechNo) - Scientists are forecasting that the snow cap found atop Mount Kilimanjaro will be totally gone before the end of this century. They state that right now up to 85% of the glacier ice that was found on top of the mountain has dicipated, and no slow down is in sight. Since 2000, the peak has lost up to 26% of its ice, a bad sign for sure as the climate continues to heat up.[23] Climate change could cause the legendary snow and ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro to disappear within the next 25 years, scientists report today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[24] New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculates for the first time the volume of ice lost from Mount Kilimanjaro's snowfields ]] Mount Kilimanjaro's snowfields and the prognosis isn't good.[25] A new report published today in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science notes that the ice cap atop Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania continues to recede.[26]
"The dramatic loss of Kilimanjaro's ice cover has attracted global attention. The three remaining ice fields on the plateau and the slopes are both shrinking laterally and rapidly thinning," the scientists write in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[13] The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concludes that the primary cause of the ice loss is the increase in global temperatures. Although changes in cloudiness and snowfall may also play a role, these factors appear to be less important.[27] The first calculation of ice volume loss indicates that from 2000 to 2007, the loss by thinning is now roughly equal to that by shrinking. These predictions, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are among the latest dramatic physical evidence of global climate change.[12]
Change in cloudiness and weather could have also been factors in the retreat of the ice, especially in recent decades, scientists said. These findings were first published in the journal proceedings of United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on Monday.[28]
Between 1912 and 2007, about 85 percent of the mountain'''s ice cover vanished, researchers report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. One ice field thinned by 24 percent at its summit from 2000-2007, and the mountain'''s Furtw''ngler Glacier is now only half as thick as it was in 2000.[22] "There is a strong likelihood that the ice fields will disappear within a decade or two if current conditions persist," said the study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.[20]
Thompson has led the study for the journal-'''Proceedings of the National Academy of Science'''. In an earlier study Thompson backed a similar finding. "In that 2002 report, we showed what we expected would happen," he said. "This paper showed that by 2007, the loss of ice is right on track." For the new study he said, "Nearly equivalent ice volumes are now being lost to thinning and lateral shrinking.'''[29] According to the author of a new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that snow could be gone by 2022. In 2002, the same team predicted that ice levels would be where they are now.[30] Writing in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team lead by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University says that if current conditions stay the same, there is no hope for the glaciers.[23] "The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause," said the paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University in a report for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[31]
The New York Times reports that the lead author, Lonnie Thompson, a glaciologist at Ohio State University, concluded that the recent melting is "unique". because it contains "elongated bubbles - signs that melting and refreezing had occurred in recent years." According to Thompson, who analyzed deep ice cylinders, this type of surface melting has not occurred in over 11,700 years.[26] "There is a strong likelihood that the ice fields will disappear in a decade or two if current conditions persist," said glaciologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, in an interview with Reuters news service.[21]
A team led by Professor Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University said that the latest assessment of Kilimanjaro's famous ice cap has confirmed that 85 per cent of the ice that covered the mountain in 1912 has been lost, and 26 per cent of the ice that was there in 2000 is now gone.[13] The ice atop Kilimanjaro "continues to diminish right on schedule for disappearing, unfortunately, in the next couple of decades," said glaciologist Lonnie Thompson at Ohio State University in Columbus.[32]
For the first time in almost 12,000 years, based on ice-core analysis, Africa's highest peak probably will be ice-free as early as 2022 or as late as 2033, says glaciologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, who led the study.[24] "There will be a year when Furtwängler is present, and, by the next year, it will have disappeared," Lonnie Thompson, a paleoclimatologist at Ohio State University who led the study, said.[27]
The team, led by Professor Lonnie Thompson, from Ohio State University in the U.S., pointed out that the snows had survived intact for 11,700 years.[14]
"The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause," Ohio State University paleoclimatologist, Lonnie Thompson, explained.[33]
In a second part of the study, scientists from the Ohio State University drilled down to the rock beneath the ice and extracted cylindrical crosssections, known as ice cores, at six different sites on the glacier.[27]
As the glaciers break up into smaller pieces, more of the darker surface of the crater is exposed. This causes temperatures to rise on the mountain and accelerates the melting of the ice, scientists say. "The shrinkage and ultimate disappearance of these glaciers will create tremendous ecological and social problems in the near future," said Doug Hardy, senior research fellow in the Climate Systems Research Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.[16] Qori Kalis glacier is part of the Quelccaya Ice Cap, the largest body of ice in the tropics. The findings suggest this area, known as the Upper Indus Basin, could be reacting differently to global warming, the phenomenon blamed for causing glaciers in the Eastern Himalaya, Nepal and India, to melt and shrink. The research, based on modeling experiments by Swiss scientists, found that should in summer temperature rise more than three degree Celsius, only the largest glaciers and those on the highest mountain peaks could survive into next century.[11] Hardy says there is too little data to blame the ice loss on increasing atmospheric temperatures. "It's entirely reasonable that, yes, the glaciers are going away on Kilimanjaro in response to global warming," but the link is via Indian Ocean-driven circulation patterns rather than via a warmer atmosphere, says Hardy.[5] Whether Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to global warming or more local factors, though, has been a point of debate.[32]
If the current rate of ice loss continues, the mountain could be ice free as early as 2022. Thompson says his team has fresh evidence that global warming is to blame.[4]
The new study appears to strengthen the argument that global warming is to blameand that, in addition to sublimating the ice atop Africa's tallest mountain, rising global temperatures are also melting the ice.[32] WASHINGTON — The snows capping Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest peak, are shrinking rapidly and could vanish altogether in 20 years, most likely due to global warming, a U.S. study published Monday said.[3] Climate change sceptics have seized on several scientific studies in recent years that have appeared to cast doubt on whether Mount Kilimanjaro's diminishing glaciers are evidence of global warming. Al Gore is the sceptics' bête noire and they like claiming to have found inaccuracies in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth.[34] The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone within two decades, according to scientists who say that the rapid melting of its glacier cap over the past century provides dramatic physical evidence of global climate change.[27]
Changes in the local vegetation around Kilimanjaro, which has lost much of it forests, may have affected the cloudiness and amount of snow that falls on the mountain. The scientists believe that warmer global temperatures have had a bigger impact on the rate at which its glaciers are melting.[13]
After examining the nearly 12,000-year-old ice core samples extracted from the glaciers, the research group said that they had been able to find no other instances of such prolonged and rapid ice loss.'' They say that this points to the uniqueness of current temperature conditions around Kilimanjaro, corroborating the idea that current global temperature changes are not part of a larger phenomena of normal cyclical climate patterns.[1] Sublimation is the evaporation of ice into the atmosphere. "This is a very thorough documentation of the changes in the Kilimanjaro glaciers," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. He was not a part of the study however, he points out very firmly to the fact "that the glaciers are retreating and have continued to retreat since their last study". It now seems that the "Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Ernest Hemingway will exist only as the title of his short story.[29]
If current conditions continue ''the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro will not endure, the researchers said. The Kilimanjaro glaciers are both shrinking, as the ice at their edges melts, and thinning, the researchers found. Similar changes are being reported at Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori Mountains in Africa and at glaciers in South America and the Himalayas.[8] Since 1912, when aerial photographers documented Kilimanjaro's glaciers, the mountain's ice fields have shrunk around 85% in area, decreasing from 12 square kilometres in size to just 1.85 square kilometres. That pace seems to be accelerating, as the glaciers shrunk 26% in area between 2000 and 2007. Thompson and colleagues calculated the glaciers' coverage with aerial and satellite images, confirming their retreat with the stakes the researchers began placing around the glaciers in 2000.[5] The team then anchored stakes in bedrock at the bottom of the drill holes and have since used the stakes to measure the thickness of the ice. One of the small summit glaciers, called the Furtw''ngler, lost about half its thickness ''' nearly five meters ''' between February 2000 and February 2009. At that rate, the 4.6-meter-thick Furtw''ngler will be gone in another decade, Thompson estimates. Other glaciers on Kilimanjaro will survive longer, but they too will disappear between 2022 and 2033, Thompson's latest estimates suggest. A second summit glacier, the southern ice field, thinned 24% between 2000 and 2007.[5] The levels of ice surrounding a stake embedded in the bedrock below a glacier in the center of Kilimanjaro's mountaintop crater, for example, indicates that 50 percent of the glacier's thickness has been lost since 2000. That particular glacier is thinning at rate of 17 feet (5.2 meters) a year and could be gone by 2018, Thompson noted.[32]
Glaciers on Mt. Kilimajaro's flanks have lost some 40 percent of their area between 2000 and 2007. One ice core Thompson's team pulled hosts oblong air bubbles at the top. Those bubbles signal repeated melting and refreezing, something that fails to appear at any other point along the core, which spans 11,700 years.[17]
Even a 300-year-long drought 4,200 years ago, which left Mount Kilimanjaro blanketed in 1-inch thick dust, did not lead to any melting. This is one of a growing number of isolated remnants of ice spires that were once full glaciers in the crater of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.[11] The majestic snow-capped summits of Africa'''s Mount Kilimanjaro are melting quickly ''' so quickly, in fact, that the ancient mountain'''s ice sheet could completely disappear within 20 years, says a U.S. study released on Monday.[1]
The whole thing will be gone." The scientists said they found no evidence of sustained melting anywhere else in the ice core samples they extracted, which date back 11,700 years. They said their findings show that current climate conditions over Mount Kilimanjaro are unique over the last 11 millennia.[3] The current climate around Mount Kilimanjaro and the recent, sustained melting of ice is unprecedented in the 11,700-year history of the glaciers, the researchers found. They found elongated air bubbles trapped in the ice at the top of one of the glacier cores, suggesting the surface ice melted and refroze. They found no other evidence of such melting in the column of ice drilled out of the glacier.[7]
The most recent survey among the ice fields atop Mount Kilimanjaro found that the ice atop Africa's most famous mountain could be gone in twenty years'''and maybe even sooner.[11] ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2009) - The remaining ice fields atop famed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone within two decades and perhaps even sooner, based on the latest survey of the ice fields remaining on the mountain.[12]
Image 2: The ice fields atop Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro glow golden in the last of the afternoon sun.[1]
The marker has been found in glaciers around the world. That layer is now gone at Kilimanjaro, the ice field having lost 2.5 metres of thickness between 2000 and 2007. The tops of both the Northern and Southern Ice Fields have thinned, by 1.8 metres and 5.1 metres, respectively.[7] Alpine glaciers lost on average 1.3 meters of thickness in 2006 and 0.7 meters in 2007, extending an 11.3-meter (36-foot) retreat since 1980. That missing radioactivity, originating as fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests during the 1950s and 1960s, routinely provides researchers with a benchmark against which they can gauge how much new ice has accumulated on a glacier or ice field.[11]
'''If you look at the percentage of volume lost since 2000 versus the percentage of area lost as the ice fields shrink, the numbers are very close.''' Though Thompson'''s team concedes that other factors such as relative cloudiness and levels of precipitation could also be playing a role, they say that these are likely minor factors compared to the effects of rising global temperatures.[1] Image 1: Kilimanjaro's massive ice fields have begun eroding as global temperatures rise.[1]
When Kilimanjaro first became the poster child of the Global Warming movement a few years ago, we were told that the ice would be gone at 2015.[35] Kilimanjaro's melting ice is often mentioned as an iconic example of changes due to global warming.[18] According to Thompson, the drier and less cloudy conditions leading to sublimation on Tanzania's Kilimanjaro are part of a suite of changes driven by global warming. "You change the temperature profile of this planet, you are going to change precipitation and cloudiness and humidity and temperature," he said. "Those are all part of climate change.[32] "Kilimanjaro is a grossly overused mis-example of the effects of climate change," said University of Washington climate scientist Philip Mote, co-author of an article in the July/August 2007 issue of American Scientist magazine. Mote actually believes in Global Warming, but not to this extent.[35]
Philip Mote, a climate expert at the University of Washington, wrote in 2007: "Kilimanjaro is a grossly overused mis-example of the effects of climate change." He attributed the glacier loss largely to sunlight and dry air causing sublimation, when ice is converted directly to water vapour without passing through the liquid phase.[34] As to what's causing the decline, the report says that while "the relative importance of different climatological drivers remains an area of active inquiry. several points bear consideration." Namely, 1) that the ice loss on Kilimanjaro is happening at the same time as widespread glacial retreat in mid and low latitudes; and 2) there is evidence that the current shrinking and thinning of these glaciers is "unique within an 11,700-year perspective." The original paper gives a number of examples which show that changes in land use, precipitation, cloudiness and humidity are superimposed on glaciers similar to those of Kilimanjaro, in terms of latitude, and that something else is at work.[25]
The findings indicate a major cause of this ice loss is very likely to be the rise in global temperatures. Although changes in cloudiness and precipitation may also play a role, they appear less important, particularly in recent decades.[12] Thompson and his colleagues found the major cause of the loss of ice is likely the rise in global temperatures, although changes in cloud cover and precipitation may also play a role.[7]
As similar changes are occurring on other mountains in Africa, South America, and in the Himalayas, Thompson says that global climate change, not local weather effects, must be responsible for the receding ice.[4] Mountain glaciers in tropical South America and the Himalayas are undergoing similar changes, Thompson's work shows. "It is the balance of evidence and global nature of glacier-ice loss throughout the tropics that points to global climate change as the driver," he writes.[17]
"What we are seeing on Kilimanjaro is global climate change," Thompson said.[32]
Thompson disagrees. He says Kaser's theory doesn't explain the fact that the same sort of ice-melt is going on all over the world right now - not just in Kilimanjaro's region. "The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause," he told the Associated Press. That common cause, he says, is global warming. As he told the New York Times, "It's when you put those (changes) together that the evidence becomes very compelling."[21] While strongly disputing Thompson's explanation, Georg Kaser of the Institut für Geographie in Innsbruck, Austria, writes that "we are confident that global warming is the ultimate driver of glacier shrinkage on Kilimanjaro due to the strong relation between Indian Ocean dynamics and East African precipitation."[9]
Not all scientists agree that global warming is to blame for the ice melt on Kilimanjaro.[21] I have not seen any new data since 2007, so perhaps something will surface soon. Until now however, the battle line is drawn again between the media friendly story and opposing scientists who back up their beliefs with data. In fact this UNEP diagram promoting global warming awareness actually shows that the measured ice has leveled off quite a bit in the past decade.[35] The headline is misleading. They actually said if the ice continues to recede at the present rate it will all be gone in one to two decades. There is no claim that this will happen. You will also notice that they consider global warming as a contributary cause, not the only one. They also mention local deforestation as another factor. This removes moisture from the area, and reduces wind shelter. That would cause lower snow fall and increased wind evaporation.[13] The snows of Mount Kilimanjaro will have disappeared within two decades because of global warming, claim scientists, changing forever one of the world's most beautiful landscapes.[15]
The famed snows of Kilimanjaro may soon appear only in old tourist photos and a short story by Ernest Hemingway if current rates of melting persist, a new study suggests. The warming climate of recent decades has caused high-altitude glaciers worldwide, and especially those in tropical areas, to shrink substantially ( SN: 10/4/03, p. 215 ).[6] Nature News writer Brian Vastag reports in the article " The melting snows of Kilimanjaro " that the glaciers on "… Africa's tallest mountain could disappear within decades." Kilimanjaro, in northeastern Tanzania, reaches a height of about 4,600 meters (12,092 feet) from its base. It is the highest peak in Africa at 5,892 meters (19,331 feet).[19] The glaciers that shine at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, could vanish entirely within 15 years, according to a somber new report.[4] Scientists say Mount Kilimanjaro's glaciers, which cap Africa's highest peak, may be gone within two decades.[16] Africa (ChattahBox) - The snow peak of Mount Kilimanjaro has decreased significantly, and scientists believe it will be gone within a few more years.[33]
Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest mountain peak, will melt in the next twenty years due to global warming.[28] According to very credible scientific research, Kilimanjaro ice reductuion is unrelated to global warming.[23] If Kilimanjaro becomes iconic, perhaps it deserves that status as much for the impact of human land-use changes on local and regional climate, as for the broader trend of long-term global warming.[17] Kilimanjaro and its environs. Therein lies a tale of how human activities may affect local and regional climate in ways that can mask or reinforce a long-term warming trend. Understanding those effects is critical to devising strategies for adapting to global warming at regional or local levels.[17]
The casue of the galcial retreat on Mt. Kilimanjaro is deforestation - NOT GLOBAL WARMING. Theses glaciers are at an altitude that is ALWAYS below freezing.[6] A glacier is melting and it is not Global Warming, hard to believe but true.[35] The new study suggests that global warming is playing an important role in more recent -- and very rapid -- melting.[18] A study, published yesterday, is a serious blow to the sceptics. It not only supplies new evidence that global warming is contributing to the melting but it is co-authored by Doug Hardy, a climatologist previously quoted by sceptics as supporting their case.[34]
The lead author appears to favor global warming as the cause of melting, but the report does not state outright or plainly that man-made global warming is too blame.[26] I know from my extensive scientific education that the Earth's atmosphere is not infinitely thick (if it were, then the Earth would be a black hole, for starters). All the climate scientists who claim that CO2 causes global warming apparently think that it is, because that is one of the hidden - or guiltily concealed - assumptions in all of their climate models. Once you correct this absurd error, and re-run the models, the contribution to global warming from CO2 completely disappears.[13] You have not established that global warming is CAUSED by CO2, or even made worse by it. You must establish this causation, because this is the key point in the whole debate. If you actually listened to skeptics and 'deniers', you would find that many of them are quite happy to accept that climate change, and even global warming, may be a real phenomenon. All they are saying is that whatever is responsible for it, it is NOT CO2.[13] "And so to say that that Kilimanjaro is not responding to global climate change is untrue."[32]
Even a 300-year-long drought around 4,200 years ago made little impact on the mountain's ice fields. It was likely the chief cause of the current trend was a fundamental shift in climate, although local changes in cloudiness and snowfall may also be having an effect. [14] Scientists believe that climatic change is the major cause of the loss of ice and if these conditions continue the mountain could be free from ice by the year 2022.[29]
If the forecast -- based on 95 years of data tracking the retreat of the Kilimanjaro ice -- proves correct it will be the first time in about 12,000 years that the slopes of Africa's highest mountain have been ice-free.[27] DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - The ice on Africa's highest mountain could vanish in 13 to 24 years, a fate also awaiting the continent's other glaciers, a study said Monday.[20] In a presentation to European Geosciences Union General Assembly in 2007, Georg Kaser stated, "Plateau glaciers could be gone between 30-40 years, but expect slop glaciers to last longer". Another study by the California Academy of Sciences expected the ice to last beyond 2050. That is a lot longer than prior expectations.[35]
The findings, published in the current issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, may have important implications for immediate future since more than two-thirds of the world's population resides in the tropics. In a paper to be published 17 May in Geophysical Research Letters, they report results from the first survey in a decade of glaciers in the Rwenzori Mountains of East Africa. An increase in air temperature over the last four decades has contributed to a substantial reduction in glacial cover, they say.[11] Thompson is co-author of a study on Kilimanjaro published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[16] Kilimanjaro. That's the word from a study appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[17]
As Kilimanjaro's glaciers thin, retreat and break into smaller pieces, the dark rocks surrounding the remaining ice will absorb more sunlight and heat up, accelerating the melting trend, says Thompson. "These ice bodies are remnants of a former climate," he notes. [6] The speed at which Kilimanjaro ice is now disappearing alone proves that melt has become a major factor. which is confirmed by the direct observation of melting which Thompson's team found.[6]
A series of cores drilled through the ice fields at different points on Kilimanjaro has revealed that the melting observed over the past few decades is unprecedented in nearly 12,000 years.[13] An ice core taken from Kilimanjaro'''s Northern Ice Field indicates that the current melting has not occurred at any other point in the last 11,700 years.[22]
At current rates of melting, permanent ice fields will disappear from Kilimanjaro by 2022, the researchers estimate.[6] A researcher passes a shrinking fragment of the Northern Ice Field on Kilimanjaro's plateau.[16]
In 2000, Thompson and his colleagues found a layer of ice 1.6 metres below the surface of Kilimanjaro's Northern Ice Field with a radioactive marker corresponding to the Operation Ivy nuclear weapons tests in the Marshall Islands in 1952.[7] The "Snows of Kilimanjaro" will then exist only as a memory - and the title of a short story by Ernest Hemingway. Scientists made their forecast after combining data from aerial photographs and ground measurements of ice thickness. They found that the total area of Kilimanjaro's ice fields had shrunk by nearly 85% between 1912 and 2007.[14] "The climatological conditions currently driving the loss of Kilimanjaro's ice fields are clearly unique within an 11,700-year perspective. These observations suggest that warmer near-surface conditions observed in the region, coupled with observed vertical amplification of temperature in lower latitudes (23-25), are playing an important role.[26] The Northern Ice Field margin still rises to heights of around 30 meters. Melting and sublimation both contribute to the ice loss, says study author Doug Hardy, a glaciologist from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.[5] The research backs up what Thompson's team first reported in an earlier study. "In that 2002 report, we showed what we expected would happen," he said in a phone interview. "This paper showed that by 2007, the loss of ice is right on track." For the new study, he says, his team examined the volume of ice loss, not just surface coverage. They found that the ice not only is shrinking in size but also is thinning rapidly.[24] Beyond Conrad's point, your suggestion is equivalent to ignoring the results of an HIV test b/c you were losing weight before the test albeit more slowly. It must have been the clothes you were wearing, not the blood test. John, did you even read your'source'? It doesn't make your case at all. because it is actually research on computer modeling of climate change. It takes land use changes causing glacial melt as a data series to feed into the model, but doesn't actually cover the scientific basis for that at all. just takes it as an assumption based on older studies. This new study shows that past dry spells have been longer and more intense than current conditions (which BTW may themselves be as much due to climate change as land use changes) yet ice did not decline anywhere near as much as it has recently.[6] The study admits that landscape changes could be playing a part in the ice loss but suggests that warmer temperatures are also likely to be "playing an important role". Will this study alter the opinions of many sceptics? Probably not, especially when they learn that it was edited by James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He is one of the original proponents of the theory that man-made emissions are causing climate change.[34] The study findings also make clear that although rising temperatures play a part in the glaciers' retreat, drier and less cloudy conditions than in the past partly the result of human-caused climate change also are contributing to "sublimation" and melting of the glaciers atop the mountain.[24] "The fact that you have melting may mean air temperatures have increased, but it doesn't necessarily," says Philip Mote, who heads the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.[9]
There is disagreement over the main cause, though signs point to climate change. The team used both aerial photographs and ground measurements of snow levels. They found "elongated bubbles" only in the top of core samples, which suggests recent melting and refreezing that is not evident at any other time in the last 12,000 years. Those who disagree suggest it's really just low moisture levels (but isn't such a changing climate pattern also a offshoot of climate change?).[30]
Data from aerial surveys supplement the team's field studies, which show that Kilimanjaro's melting has dramatically accelerated in recent decades, says Thompson.[6] Thompson and his colleagues have studied Kilimanjaro's dwindling ice for several decades. The mountain, they say, has lost 85 percent of its glacial ice since 1912.[32] As other data from Thompson and colleagues confirms, the much larger tropical ice fields of the Andes Mountains are also shrinking, which within decades will leave tens of millions of people without drinking water.[5] "The loss of the ice fields will have a negative impact on tourism in tropical east Africa," said Thompson in an email to Reuters.[20] Some 26 percent of the ice present in 2000, Dr. Thompson's last trip to the summit, vanished by the end of the period. The Furtwangler Ice Field in particular has lost 50 percent of its thickness since 2000. At that pace, it will vanish into a damp patch of summit soil by 2018.[17] Kilimanjaro's Southern Ice Field -- which was approximately 21 meters thick in 2000 -- lost about 5.1 meters of ice thickness by 2007.[6] On Kilimanjaro, the researchers said, the northern ice field thinned by 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) and the southern ice field by 16.7 feet (5.1 meters) between 2000 and 2007.[36]
From 1989 to the most recent survey in 2007, the ice-covered area dropped, on average, a whopping 2.4 percent per year, the researchers report. Not only are the ice masses of Kilimanjaro receding farther up the peak, they're thinning considerably -- a trend detectable only by improved ground observations made in recent years.[6] Thompson and his team of researchers have spent seven years measuring the glaciers of Kilimanjaro, whose snow-capped profile rises dramatically over the surrounding tropical plains. Using 110 "porters," or local residents, they carried 6 tons of equipment to the mountain's plateau.[16] According to scientific measurements made on Kilimanjaro by U.S. researchers, the glaciers found on the mountain in Africa could be gone within 25 years or less.[19]
More than 85 per cent of the ice that covered the three peaks of Africa's highest mountain has disappeared in the last 100 years and the rest is melting at such a rate it will be gone by 2030.[15] The famous "Snows of Kilimanjaro" that cap Africa's highest mountain are melting so fast they could be gone within two decades, experts have said.[14] The snows of Kilimanjaro are rapidly disappearing and will be gone by 2033, predicts the most detailed analysis yet of the iconic glaciers gracing Africa's highest peak.[5] For decades scientists have documented the disappearing glaciers on Kilimanjaro, whose peak is Africa's highest point.[32]
"The Kilimanjaro glaciers are indicators for a larger-scale process," Thompson said. "It's not just Kilimanjaro, it's every tropical glacier in Africa, in the tropical Andes of South America, it's the glaciers in New Guinea. We are losing all those glaciers in today's world."[16] U.S.-based researchers Lonnie Thompson and colleagues said glaciers on Kilimanjaro, Tanzania's snow-capped volcano which attracts 40,000 visitors a year, could disappear.[20] Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco last week, Dr. Lonnie Thompson said that Peru's Qori Kalis glacier is melting at a rate of some 60 meters (200 feet) per year.[11]
Says glaciologist Lonnie Thompson: "Of the ice cover present in 1912 85% has disappeared and 26% of that present in 2000 is now gone". The mountaintop glaciers are both shrinking around the edges and growing thinner, Thompson's team found.[4] To determine the pace at which the ice is disappearing, the research team made a collective analysis of the measurements of ice area from aerial photographs, along with the ground measurements of changes in ice thickness. In their report, Thompson and his colleagues said: "Of the ice cover present in 1912, 85% has disappeared and 26% of that present in 2000 is now gone.[10]
The researchers combined measurements of ice area from aerial photographs and ground measurements of changes in ice thickness to determine how fast the ice is disappearing. Similar analyses of other tropical glaciers in South America, Asia and Oceania have revealed similar loss of glacial ice, Thompson says.[24] Thinning accounts for about half of the ice loss on the mountain, says Thompson, with retreat of the ice from the glaciers' edges accounting for the other half.[5] The ice loss is bad news for Tanzania, Thompson explains in an e-mail exchange.[17]
If drier conditions were to blame, it would be reasonable to expect a 300-year drought that afflicted Kilimanjaro 4,200 years ago to have resulted in significant ice loss.[34] Kaser, climbs Kilimanjaro twice a year to gather data. He says the ice topography shows little evidence that melting is anything but a minor force. Basically he believes that based on ice core samples, conditions are returning to where they were 11,000 years ago.[35] Cross-sections of ice examined by Dr Hardy show that the only sustained melting in the past 11,700 years began about 40 years ago.[34]
The research also shows that that the current thinning of the ice cap is faster than when a devastating 300-year drought occurred 4,200 years ago, a period when very little snow fell on the mountain.[13] The mountain's white peak was made famous by the author Ernest Hemingway but research shows that more than a quarter of the ice that was there a decade ago has now melted.[31]
Researchers made the prediction after drilling holes in the remaining ice-core on top of the 19,000 ft high mountain. Their work shows that 85 percent of the ice that covered the mountain in 1912 had been lost by 2000.[15] The mountain's ice cover shrank about 1 percent a year from 1912 to 1953, a rate that has accelerated in recent years.[16] Since that period included a 300-year drought, the region'''s recent dry conditions probably cannot fully explain the mountain'''s rapid ice loss as some have proposed, the researchers say.[22] Since there has not been enough snow to replenish the supply, then net result is ice loss.[35]
If conditions persist, and warmer temperatures continue to melt more ice than falls in the form of snow, then there is a "strong likelihood that the ice field will disappear within a decade or two", the authors conclude.[13] The thickest part of the peak's 50-meter-thick Northern Ice Field thinned by 1.9 meters between 2000 and 2007, Thompson says.[6] Radioactive dating techniques also showed that the ice was quickly thinning, as well as contracting in area. The Southern Ice Field had thinned by 5.1m between 2000 and 2007, and the smaller Furtwängler Glacier had thinned by 4.8m -- 50 per cent of its total depth.[27] "We present additional evidence that the combination of processes driving the current shrinking and thinning of Kilimanjaro's ice fields is unique within an 11,700-year perspective. If current climatological conditions are sustained, the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro and on its flanks will likely disappear within several decades," they say.[13] There are fewer clouds to protect Kilimanjaro from solar radiation and there is less snowfall to replenish the ice fields.[34] A remnant of a Kilimanjaro ice field that had been quite extensive as recently as 1962.[24] All meaning that the ice fields on the top and along the flanks of Kilimanjaro are poised to disappear "within several decades".[25] Regardless of the contributions of various drivers, the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro will not endure if current conditions are sustained and adaptive actions to minimize the potential impacts should be developed quickly[26]
The study's authors blame the disappearing ice on increases in global temperatures and diminished snowfall at Kilimanjaro's summit.[16] A new study says 85 percent of the ice cover that was present on Kilimanjaro in 1912 has melted.[18] What's more, 26 percent of the ice that remained in 2000 was gone by 2007, the last time Kilimanjaro's ice was precisely mapped.[32] The ice that was present in 1912 gradually decreased by 85% by 2000, and by 2007 another 26% of the amount in 2000. This was the first time that the volume of the ice in Kilimanjaro was measured.[28] In 2000, Thompson and his team made the first modern measurements of Kilimanjaro's ice.[5]
Related Video: Introduction to Kilimanjaro In addition, ice core data from one of the glaciers shows signs that the surface has melted and refrozen, contributing to the thinning of the glaciers.[32] As much ice is now being lost through thinning as from retreat at the margins, Thompson said. "These glaciers are being decapitated from the surface down."[32] "The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause," Professor Thompson said. "The increase of Earth's surface temperatures, couple with even greater increases in the mid- to upper-tropical troposphere as documented in recent decades, would at least partially explain the observed widespread similarity in glacier behaviour," he said.[13] "The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause," Professor Thompson said. He attributed the changes to increases in the Earth's surface temperatures, which are exaggerated at high altitudes.[27]
"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" the observations. Changes in cloudiness and snowfall may also be involved, though they appear less important, according to the study.[36]
"And in fact, the temperature on the summit of Kilimanjaro is essentially always below freezing, which makes it hard to accept warming as the reason for glacier loss." The likelier explanation, he and others say, is a combination of factors, including changes in weather patterns.[9] Climate scientists have long maintained - and evidence from the real world is already confirming - that warming doesn't just result in higher temperatures. It also leads to changes in weather patterns, including more intense precipitation in some areas, more severe droughts in others (and sometimes, as in the case of the American Southeast, a little of both). That may well be what's happening at Kilimanjaro.[9]
Perhaps it would help you understand by noting that glaciers are melting all over the world, irrespective of whether or not deforestation has occurred in the vicinity. It follows then, that local deforestation cannot account for all these observations. That said, Freeman Dyson argues that global re-afforestation would go a long way to addressing concerns about changing climate. by withdrawing carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere. Then, so do a great many climate scientists, all of whom are concerned about changing atmospheric CO2 content for reasons such as those outlined in other postings.[13] Even if Mote is right, that doesn't rule out global warming as a root cause of glacier retreat.[9] Carbon DIOXIDE healthy? Certainly! it is one of the most powerful foods/fertilizers of plants, which feed animals and, either directly or indirectly, humans. read the links in my previous post if you want to know why adding crabon dioxide to the atmostphere can actually be a good thing, and certainly isn;t a bad thing (because it does not, repeat NOT, cause global warming!).[13] At the end of the day I'm conscious of the environment / emissions etc not because I have seen conclusive scientific evidence of the cause and effect of it on global warming but rather because common sense says that it just has to be bad for everyone.[13]
Global warming plays a part, but a variety of factors are really involved.'" He believes that forest reduction in the areas surrounding Kilimanjaro, and not global warming, might be the strongest human influence on glacial recession. "'Clearing for agriculture and forest fires-often caused by honey collectors trying to smoke bees out of their hives-have greatly reduced the surrounding forests,'" he claims.[35] Kilimanjaro have been rising faster than global warming alone would account for.[17]
Regardless, we are all about to be inundated with global warming and climate calamity stories leading up to the Climate Conference in Copenhagen on December 7th.[35] Without using the phrase "man-made global warming," the authors clearly believe that there are certain "adaptive actions" that can be taken to "minimize" the melting.[26] The answer to the question "Is it global warming or changes in weather patterns?" may be, simply, yes.[9] Surely, surely pumping huge volumes of carbon monoxide/dioxide into the air cannot, under any circumstances, be a good thing. Isn't this common sense? The extent to which it contributes to/causes global warming etc is rather a moot point isn't it? I mean, I'm a simply man (who does run a skiing holidays business and has seen snowfalls drop in recent times) but it seems to me that too much of one thing is rarely ever positive. The same argument can be applied to deforestation - it can never be viewed as a good thing can it? Pumping sewerage into rivers - this is bad as well surely.[13] Even without global warming the disapperance is of critical importance,to all living beings over there. We all like to watch the earth from the sky maybe far away from the moon from the google earth,but i think we are forgetting that we are a part of this miraculous organism we call earth,when i look i dont see borders,languages,religions,fences,differnt ethnicities; I see a beautiful miraculous blue ball,which signalsplease pay attention to my needs,you and me we have nowhere left to go,and even if we had surely it would not have been as bautiful as here.[5] All you have done - and it is a common mistake/tactic of warmists - is to mention CO2 and global warming in the same paragraph, as if this is suffficient to establish a causal link between CO2 and global warming.[13] Leaving global warming aside (if that's possible), what possible reason can there be for continuing to pollute the atmosphere with CO2 by old-fashioned, wasteful, dangerous, inefficient technologies? The only 'reason' is the vested interests of mining companies, oil and gas companies and the like.[13] You can find a summary here. Expect to see more of these kinds of studies as adaptation to global warming looms larger on the horizon.[17] An increasing number of studies are suggesting that the intensity of long-term effects from global warming locally can be affected by land-use practices in the area.[17] Let's just assume that your implication is correct and that global warming is completely natural. That's like saying it's OK to dump toxic waste into the ocean because deep sea volcanic vents are already dumping sulfuric acid and other toxins into the water.[4]
If "global warming" is to blame then the root cause would be macro-system triggers like Solar Output, Regional climate shifts, and water vapor density.[4]
Sublimation is the reduction of ice and snow in a cold dry climate. This information is widely known in Africa and the scientific community. Thompson knows this but ignores it to propogate a larger agenda. [6] When the first European climbers reached the summit in 1889, the local climate was already dry,and the ice was already retreating. Kaser points out that this is due to sublimation. That is when snow an ice skip melting and goes directly to water vapor gas.[35]
The 12 square kilometers of ice coverage in 1912 reduced to a mere 1.9 square kilometers in 2007. The second part of the study showed that extensive melting and refreezing of ice had taken place in the last 40 years, and the present degree of melting did not happen even during three centuries of drought that the region faced around 4,200 years ago.[2] There is even a comparison of NASA photos that show ice growth between 2003 and 2004. Is it possible that perhaps this is part natural, and also part of the locals cutting trees to enhance the dry region? There does appear to be a trend in new ice growth on Antarctica and around the North Pole the past few years. At least in the north, a gradual improvement from the record low ice a few years ago.[17] Why have there not been many pictures or data updates since 2000? The NASA Earth Observatory did provide a 2003 and 2004 picture, which does actually show how the snow and ice expanded during that one year.[35]
Thompson drilled cores from the three glaciers ringing the summit, estimating that the ice bodies date back at least 11,700 years.[5] "What we're doing is cashing in on a bank account that was built over thousands of years but isn't being replenished. Once it's gone, it will be difficult to re-form," Professor Thompson said in 2001 in his earlier glaciers study.[13] The smaller Furtwangler Glacier, which was melting and water-saturated in 2000 when it was drilled, has thinned as much as 50 percent between 2000 and 2009, the study said. "It has lost half of its thickness," Thompson said.[3] Furtw''ngler Glacier atop the mountain has melted 50 percent from 2000 to 2009. "It has lost half of its thickness," Thompson explained.[11]
Melting is occurring on Mount Kenya, the Rwenzori Mountains in central Africa, as well as on tropical glaciers high in the Andes andHimalayas. [27] Scientists warned other glaciers, on Mount Kenya, the Rwenzori Mountains in Africa, as well as tropical glaciers high in the South American Andes and in the Himalayas, are suffering the same fate.[15]
The glacier atp Kilimanjaro is believed to have formed around 11,000 years ago during a wet period in eastern Africa. [35] Image 3: One of a growing number of isolated remnants of Kilimanjaro ice spires, once full glaciers.[1] More importantly it found direct proof of extensive ice MELT at Kilimanjaro. while the 'dry weather' theory you cite holds that the ice is NOT melting to a liquid state, but rather sublimating from ice into water vapor.[6] If you're new here and you like our articles, how about subscribing free for our updates via RSS feed. Kilimanjaro Snow Cap Okay ]] Mt. Kilimanjaro Snow Cap Okay An Ohio State University researcher claimed that Mt Kilimanjaro will lose its snow cap between 2015-2020. He made is guesstimate based on photos taken.[2] Snows of Mt. New York, November 3 -- The snow on the legendary '''Mount Kilimanjaro''' of Tanzania, has very less time to live as scientists predict its disappearance in the next 25 years.[29]
An Austrian group of scientists headed by Georg Kaser at The University of Innsbruck conducted research along with The University of Otago, New Zealand, and the University of Massachusetts and found that the ice issue is not being explained accurately.[35] Glaciologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio University stated, "Of the ice cover present in 1912," Thompson and his colleagues write in the paper, "85% has disappeared and 26% of that present in 2000 is now gone."[29] "We've lost 26% of the ice since 2000 alone. That, unfortunately, is just what we predicted would happen." That's not to say that Thompson's research is the final word on the debate.[9] In 2000, Professor Thompson and his colleagues measured a radioactive signal in the ice cap that was left over from the American atomic tests in 1951 and 1952. That signal was at a depth of 1.6 metres (5.25ft) below the surface of the ice. It has now disappeared because the top 2.5 metres of ice have melted away.[13]
Since 2000, the plateau's three remaining ice fields have shrunk by 26 percent, scientists found. [16] "If you look at the percentage of volume lost since 2000 versus the percentage of area lost as the ice fields shrink, the numbers are very close."[11] The report goes on to show that from 2000-2007 the amount of thinning at the summits of the Northern and Southern Ice Fields was 1.9m and 5.1m respectively, or a decline of 3.6% and 24%.[25] Remnant of the Eastern Ice Field as seen 2000. This particular chunk of ice has now disappeared.[5] The 12 sq km (4.6 sq miles) of ice coverage in 1912 contracted to 1.9 sq km by 2007, going from two large ice fields to a collection of several smaller, isolated patches.[27]
The examination of other tropical glaciers in South America, Asia and Oceania has revealed similar loss of glacial ice. [29] According to scientists, some of the ice in Antarctica's glaciers has been around for millions of years.)[21] The scientists compared aerial photographs of the mountain taken over time to obtain horizontal measurements of the retreating ice.[26] To measure the ice, the research team relied on photos taken from the air, along with instrument readings from devices planted atop the mountain.[23] At two sites, the amount of ice being lost to thinning is almost as much as the amount lost to retreat, the team says.[22] "Nearly equivalent ice volumes are now being lost to thinning and lateral shrinking," the authors write in the study.[24] The study presents new evidence that provides an additional causal link to the disappearing ice. It suggests an anomalous acceleration of that loss.[6] Some studies have suggested the ice loss is due primarily to what some see as local factors: less snowfall and more sublimationa process that turns ice directly into water vapor at below freezing temperatures.[32] The most relevent phrase is "If conditions persist, and warmer temperatures continue to melt more ice than falls in the form of snow".[13]
The glaciers that cover the peak are simply melting. Similar changes are being reported at other mounains in Africa with a snow cap. This week we reported on a BBC story on the melting of the glaciers in the Himalayas and there's also video of 2 films we have made on the subject for PlanetSKI.[31] The former U.S. Vice-President presented the melting snows on Africa's tallest peak as one of the most dramatic visible signs of the impact of man-made greenhouse gases. The studies have not questioned that the glaciers are rapidly melting but have suggested that the cause is more likely to be regional factors, such as deforestation of the foothills owing to extensive farming.[34]
The study shows that rising temperatures play a part in the glacier'''s drier and less cloudy conditions and are also contributing to sublimation and melting of the glaciers. [29] The study, based on terrestrial and satellite photographs, shows the shrinking contours of ice at points between 1912 and 2007.[27] As Kilimanjaro shows, should the thermal resistivity of the troposphere vary, then the ice melts, and the people no longer have a water storage for the dry season.[13] The ice sheet that capped Kilimanjaro in 1912 was 85 percent smaller by 2007, and since 2000 the existing ice sheet has shrunk by 26 percent, the paleoclimatologists said.[3]
There is no claim that will happen. It also mentions there was a 300 year drought in the area 4,200 years ago which thinned the ice cap, but not so quickly. [13] Sometime in elementary school I learned that the last Ice age ended around 10,000 years ago. I never realized that prehistoric man drove gas guzzlers causing this man made catastrophe to begin.[17]
The warming could have been controlled by a greenhouse thermostat operating by temperature control of the weathering process depleting the atmosphere from CO2. This temperature control has permitted life to evolve as early as the end of the heavy bombardment 4 billion years ago." The Stefan-Boltzmann Constant may not be overly relevant to climatology, however, the Boltzmann distribution for black-body radiation is relevant, particular its temperature dependence.[13]
A significant amount of the ice disappeared in the first half of the 20th century, before significant planetary warming.[18] Agreed that 90% of the ice has been lost since first measurements, but the reasoning is in dispute.[35]
However some scientists believe the disappearance of sun spots augurs a Maunder minimum replica and will bring a new little ice age.[13] Why hasn't there been any new information since 2007? If that is the latest data set, then why is this news today in 2009? Reading the article from the Baltimore Weather Examiner, it does show the UNEP chart which looks like the rate of ice melt was slowing down dramatically.[17] Temperatures there never get above freezing. Not that they aren't suppose to, but a weather station on top of the volcano shows that they still don't get above freezing. That is a major point here, and a contrast to the widely reported story just released by AP about disappearing ice caps.[35] The presence of elongated bubbles trapped in the frozen ice at the top of one of the cores shows that surface ice has melted and refrozen.[12]
Clouds play a crucial role in protecting snow and ice from sunrays, with fewer sunrays meaning faster freezing of water. Repeating climate-change propaganda like this undermines the AGW arguements. This has led to a direect loss in humidity which leads to a reduction in cloud cover.[13] One of the criticisms most frequently lobbed at Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is that he has his facts wrong about the snows of Kilimanjaro. Those immortal snows are vanishing (actually, they're glaciers, but we can blame Ernest Hemingway for that bit of poetic license), as Gore's global-warming documentary contends, but they've been receding since the early 1900s at least - long before the planet began to warm.[9] If that happens, the snows of Kilimanjaro will no doubt make a spectacular re-appearance. What you have missed in all this, is that climate science is largely a matter of speculation, and the science is not settled.[13] Thanks for this muckle10, you are quite right to point out the possible effect of changing landscapes on local climates. I cannot see how moisture-laden blowing across those foothills would be drier as a result of not passing a forest; I can see how a dry wind would remain dry if it doesn't have a forest to moisten it, and that alteration to cloud cover over Kilimanjaro changes the local climate.[13] 'We' don't need to do anything about the rest of 'you'. Nature will attend to all of us in her own good time. It's not an issue of "belief about humans being the cause of climate change"; that human activity has been and is contributing to such change is demonstrated. If you were distracted, and unable to notice this, I recommend William F Ruddiman's 'Plows, Plagues and Petroleum'. (US spelling) Ruddiman explains how humans have been affecting climate since the advent of agriculture.[13] What is happening there has nothing to do with climate changes, whether local or global.[17]
Check out our Bright Green blog archive and our RSS feed. This article completely overlooks the fact that the ground temperature on the mountain has been increasing. This is due to an increase in geothermal activity on the mountain and has nothing to do with changes in climate. Most of the changes on the mountain are due to this activity.[17] Various other mountains in Africa have seen the same results as temperatures warm. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.[33] "The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause," Thompson said in a statement. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.[23]
Large numbers of people rely on mountain glaciers for a regular supply of water or hydroelectric power throughout the year. [13] When the glacier's vanish, will the mountain still draw 30,000 to 40,000 tourists a year, as it does now? (About 10,000 a year try to climb it.)[17]
In 95 years of data tracking since 1912, nearly 85% of the glaciers have disappeared, and 26% were lost after year 2000.[2] One year in the future there will be a glacier therebut it will be very thinand the following year it will be gone."[32]
At 5,896 meters high, Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the east African country's top tourism draws, offering tourists a taste of the tropical and the glacial within a five-day climb. It brings in an estimated $50 million a year.[20] Mount Kilimanjaro stands 19,340 feet tall. It towers above the rest of the landscape in the East African nation of Tanzania.[21]
A study published by the Overseas Development Institute in January estimated that 35,000 to 40,000 people visit Kilimanjaro every year, spending almost $50 million annually in the country. [16] Before-and-after shots show the snowy cap atop Kilimanjaro growing smaller and smaller over the years.[32]
Austrian glaciologist Georg Kaser says the real reason is a decline in moisture levels around Kilimanjaro. That means less precipitation falling on the mountain, in the form of rain lower down or snow at the top.[21] Bleak news today for those hoping to one day see the iconic snow atop Kilimanjaro.[30] Snows disappearing from Kilimanjaro WASHINGTON (AP) The snows of Kilimanjaro may soon be gone.[8]
The melting of Kilimanjaro is part of a trend of glacial retreat throughout Africa, India and South America.[27] Kilimanjaro is a volcano near the equator in Africa and the tallest peak on the continent that rises 19,340 ft above sea level.[35]
To obtain changes in depth measurements, the scientists used instruments installed on Kilimanjaro in 2000.[26]
A repeal in New England, the corner of the country most receptive to same-sex marriage would be a jolting setback for the gay-rights movement and mark the first time voters overturned a gay-marriage law enacted by a legislature. ElBaradei asks Iran for quick response on nukes UNITED NATIONS (AP) The head of the U.N. nuclear agency urged Iran on Monday to clarify its response to a U.S. -backed proposal that would have Tehran ship most of its nuclear material abroad for processing. Iranian officials sent mixed signals on the proposal that would have Tehran export 70 percent of its enriched uranium enough to build a bomb and having it returned as fuel for its research reactor, with the foreign minister saying Monday that option still exists and a senior diplomat suggesting the opposite. [8] The glaciers have been in retreat for more than a century, Hardy says, with a drying climate in East Africa one main culprit.[5]
Researchers have pinned the cause on increasing Earth surface temperatures that get affect high altitudes badly. [2]
SOURCES
1. Scientists Say Kilimanjaro'''s Ice Caps Rapidly Melting - Science News - redOrbit
2. Kilimanjaro's Melting Snow Shows a Drastic Picture of Global Warming
3. AFP: Snows of Kilimanjaro could vanish in 20 years: study
4. The Snows of Kilimanjaro Could Be Gone by 2022 | 80beats | Discover Magazine
5. The melting snows of Kilimanjaro : Nature News
6. Mount Kilimanjaro's Glaciers Could Soon Vanish - US News and World Report
7. CBC News - Technology & Science - Kilimanjaro glaciers could go within decades
8. Mohave Daily News: Nation
9. Kilimanjaro Receding Glaciers: Global Warming to Blame? - TIME
10. Study: Loss of ice atop Kilimanjaro '''on track''' to disappear in next 25 years | TopNews United States
11. Goodbye, snows of Kilimanjaro
12. Snows Of Kilimanjaro Shrinking Rapidly, And Likely To Be Lost
13. Climate change will melt snows of Kilimanjaro 'within 20 years' - Climate Change, Environment - The Independent
14. The Press Association: Kilimanjaro snow 'melting fast'
15. Snows of Kilimanjaro 'to disappear in 20 years' - Telegraph
16. Glaciers disappearing from Kilimanjaro - CNN.com
17. Is global warming melting the ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro? | csmonitor.com
18. Kilimanjaro Glaciers May Vanish In A Few Decades : NPR
19. iTWire - Glaciers on Kilimanjaro melting fast
20. Kilimanjaro's ice may disappear by 2033 | Reuters
21. Nick.com's Nick News Top Story
22. Going, Going, Gone : Journal Watch Online
23. Snow Cap Melting Away Atop Mount Kilimanjaro : dBTechno
24. Kilimanjaro's famous icy peaks are thawing fast - USATODAY.com
25. No Snows on Kilimanjaro by 2030 as Glaciers Continue Their Rapid Retreat : TreeHugger
26. New report: Snows of Kilimanjaro still melting
27. Kilimanjaro's snows melt away in dramatic evidence of climate change - Times Online
28. Scientists: Snow on Mt. Kilimanjaro to melt in twenty years | The Castlegar Source
29. Snows of Mt. Kilimanjaro- an end? | The Money Times
30. Snows of Kili no more | UN Dispatch
31. PlanetSKI | News | The snows of Kilimanjaro
32. Kilimanjaro's Snows Gone by 2022?
33. Mount Kilimanjaro Latest Victim Of Climate Change | ChattahBox News Blog
34. Battle over the causes of Kilimanjaro's melt hots up - Times Online
35. Kilimanjaro falsely connected to Global Warming
36. The Associated Press: Snow cap disappearing from Mount Kilimanjaro
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