KONTREI TRAVELLER, PAARL - IF you were still aiming to climb Kilimanjaro Mountain in its full ice-capped splendor, time is running out!
According to a recent study the three remaining ice fields on the plateau and the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro are both shrinking laterally and rapidly thinning - and at an alarming rate.
Published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the latest Kilimanjaro study shows that summit ice cover decreased 1% per year from 1912 to 1953 and 2.5% per year from 1989 to 2007.
According to the authors current climatological conditions are likely to cause the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro and on its flanks to disappear within several decades, even as early as by 2022.
In anticipation of objections by climate change critics, the study points out that they are in posession of evidence that the current shrinking and thinning of Kilimanjaro’s ice fields is unique within an 11,700-year perspective.
Of the ice cover present in 1912, 85% has disappeared and 26% of that present in 2000 is now gone.
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