| Kilimanjaro snow may to disappear by 2022 |
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03/11/2009 16:36 (17 Day 22:25 minutes ago) | |||||
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The FINANCIAL -- The snow on the Mount Kilimanjaro of Tanzania has very less time to live as scientists predict its disappearance in the next few years. A new study confirms that the snow could be gone by 2022.
Scientists believe global warming rather than local weather changes is chiefly to blame for the rapid loss of ice from the Tanzanian peak, Press Association reported. 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, according to the same source. The researchers predict that if current conditions persist, the mountain could be ice-free as early as 2022.
"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, The Independent reported.
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 who led the study, according to the National Geographic. For decades scientists have documented the disappearing glaciers on Kilimanjaro, whose peak is Africa's highest point.
Whether Kilimanjaro's ice loss is due to global warming or more local factors, though, has been a point of debate, the same source informs. Some studies have suggested the ice loss is due primarily to what some see as local factors: less snowfall and more sublimation—a process that turns ice directly into water vapor at below freezing temperatures.
Thompson 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, The Independent reported. 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. 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.
According to Telegraph, Researchers made the prediction after drilling holes in the remaining ice-core on top of the 19,000 ft high mountain.
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