Glaciers disappearing from Kilimanjaro - CNN.com

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Glaciers disappearing from Kilimanjaro

(CNN) -- The ice and snow that cap majestic Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania are vanishing before our eyes.

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. Thompson is co-author of a study on Kilimanjaro published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study's authors blame the disappearing ice on increases in global temperatures and diminished snowfall at Kilimanjaro's summit.

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 ...

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http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/02/kilimanjaro.glaciers/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/11/02/kilimanjaro.glaciers/index.html