JULIET SHARDLOW

Africa’s largest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, could be losing its famous ‘snowy peak’ thanks to Climate Change, a new report suggests. Over 85% of the ice cover that once proved a postcard image has deteriorated since the turn of the 20th century.

Whilst this finding may not be ‘news’ to many climatologists and media representatives, the study also shows that the ice cap is likely to disappear completely by 2030. The rapidity of the ice shelf decline has been put down to climate-controlled factors, most likely global warming caused by increased carbon emissions.

Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania, is famous with tourists for its spectacular backdrop of looming ice fields against the green savannah land. A decrease in ice coverage would not only significantly harm visitor numbers to the area, as tour providers claim, but also would have devastating effects on the natural and cultural heritage of Eastern Africa.

American journalists have claimed that the plateau of ice caps and the coverage on the peak itself is depleting “rapidly”. One of the world’s leading glaciologists has confirmed the 85 per cent loss of ice coverage over the past 100 years, adding that 26 per cent of the ice that was there in 2000 is now gone.

Journalists and scientists appeal to current “climate conditions”, such as warmer temperatures and heating at a lower atmosphere, as an explanation of the sudden increase in melting. The problem is, claims one American scientific publication that the ice is depleting faster than snow can solidify on the peak. This could only happen under warmer temperature conditions. They look to similar cases of glacial depletion, such the Alps in Europe, or the Andes in South America, for proof of a global warming that is not merely specific to the Tanzanian region.

If we look specifically to the East African region, however, scientists can say that there is an equation between the depletion of vegetation and forests that surround Kilimanjaro and the amount of snow that falls on its peak. If the vegetation is gradually shrinking, then this could spark a change in the cloud cover and weather of the region, leading to less snowfall.

In the research conducted by the scientists, a series of holes were drilled through the ice fields at different points on the peak. The team wanted to determine if the thinning over the past few decades was more or less devastating than the 300-year snowfall drought that occurred 4,000 years ago. Data recovered from these cores shows that the ice fields have decreased by up to 5.1 metres.