Ohio State Team - Kilimanjaro's Ice & Snow Loss Accelerating - AFP

[hatrack]

Five years after warning that the famed ice fields on Tanzania 's Mount Kilimanjaro may melt, Ohio State University researchers have sadly found that their prediction is coming true. And the impact of the loss of that ice atop Africa 's highest peak – disregarding the loss of tourism that will follow the vanishing ice – could add to the heavy drought burden already facing those living near that mountain.

For Lonnie Thompson, professor of geological sciences, his third expedition to the summit of Kilimanjaro was all too much like visiting a sick friend in failing health. In 2002, Thompson and his colleagues shocked the scientific community with their prediction that the ice fields capping the mountain would disappear between 2015 and 2020, the victims, at least in part, of global warming. Returning to his campus office last week, he admits that nothing has happened to alter that prediction.

In fact, the mountain's ice fields may disappear sooner. "The change there is so dramatic," he said. "We can see it both in the field and from aerial photographs of the mountaintop. I would say it is on track to disappear, and the rate of ice loss may even be accelerating. "But we need to look at the numbers to confirm that."

EDIT

The latest expedition added more chilling evidence:

+ At three places on the margin of the northern ice field, a 50-meter (164-foot) high wall of ice has retreated between 4.8 and 5 meters (about 16 feet) since 2002;

+ A massive hole that reaches through the ice down to the bedrock has formed in the middle of the Furtwangler glacier, as well as in the northern ice field, two of the ice bodies on the mountain. Those holes should split the Furtwangler glacier in two within the next six months; and the northern ice field in the next two years.

+ The thickness of the ice fields is waning rapidly. The northern ice field has lost 2 meters (6.5 feet) of ice from the surface, the Furtwangler has lost more than 3 meters (10 feet), and the southern ice fields have lost between 4 and 5 meters (13 and 16.5 feet).

EDIT

BTW, if you haven't read "Thin Ice", do so - it's a great adventure book and a great science book!

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Snows_Of_Kilimanjaro_Disappearing_Glacial_Ice_Loss_Increasing.html

[Wilms]

1. n/t

[Dead_Parrot]

2. OMG! Quick, lets do a 10 year study... nt

[phantom power]

3. The only scientific approach is to let it all melt.

If we don't, we'll never have all the data.