The Ice on Top

Read a report from the BBC News website and draw your own conclusions as to whether the snow/ice will last...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6561527.stm

A fresh assessment suggests the famous ice fields on Africa's tallest mountain will be around for decades yet. Recent concerns that climate warming would rob Mount Kilimanjaro of all its glaciers within 20 years are overly pessimistic, say Austrian scientists.

Their weather station data and modelling work indicate the tropical ice should last well beyond 2040. Precipitation and not temperature is the key to the white peak's future, the University of Innsbruck-led team says. "About five years ago Kilimanjaro was being used as an icon for global warming. We know now that this was far too simplistic a view," said Thomas Moelg.

"We have done different kinds of modelling and we expect the plateau glaciers to be gone roughly within 30 or 40 years from now, but we have a certain expectation that the slope glaciers may last longer," added colleague Georg Kaser.

The group's assessment was presented here at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly meeting. It acts as a counterpoint to the most doom-laden projections for the 5,895m-high (19,340ft) peak, which draws thousands of tourists intrigued by the idea of seeing ice just three degrees south of the equator.

Hanging on

The research team has been using three automated instrument stations on the top of the mountain to collect continuous data on temperature, pressure, solar radiation, humidity and wind.

The recording effort was in position late last year to witness heavy snowfall, which will have led to a slight increase in Kilimanjaro's overall ice volume. This glacier growth is only temporary, however. The mountain's ice is dependent on the pulses of moist air that sweep across from the Indian Ocean.

Since the late 1800s, these have become less frequent, and the regular snows that would maintain the ice fields are now a rare occurrence in what has become a much drier climate in East Africa. Today, the total ice extent - on the slopes and on the plateau - is about 2.5 sq km, down from more than 12 sq km in the early 1900s.

Some scientists have drawn a fairly straight-line curve and forecast a rapid final retreat to a totally bare mountain. But the Innsbruck team is more optimistic about the medium term having now put real field measurements into a comprehensive modelling programme.

"Glacier recession has been a feature on Kilimanjaro for more than 100 years, but this is the first time we really have a precise understanding of the physical processes that control the glacier-climate interaction on Africa's highest mountain," said Dr Moelg.