Posted on 10/18/2002 2:29:24 PM PDT by Yzerman
Snows of Kilimanjaro gone by 2020? Researchers trace past and future of famed African ice fields The picture on the left shows Mount Kilimanjaro as seen from the space shuttle in November 1990. The picture on the right was taken by a shuttle crew in December 2000. The pictures show the retreat of glaciers over the course of a decade.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — The snow cap of Mount Kilimanjaro, famed in literature and beloved by tourists, first formed some 11,000 years ago but will be gone in two decades, according to researchers who say the ice fields on Africa’s highest mountain shrank by 80 percent in the past century.
LONNIE G. THOMPSON of Ohio State University said measurements using ice corings and modern navigation satellites show that the oldest ice layers on the famed mountain were deposited during an extremely wet period starting about 11,700 years ago. But a temperature rise in recent years, measured at about a full degree since 2000, is eroding the 150-foot-high blocks of ice that gave Kilimanjaro its distinctive white cap. “The ice will be gone by about 2020,” said Thompson, the first author of a study appearing Friday in the journal Science. The diminishing ice already has reduced the amount of water in some Tanzanian rivers, and the government fears that when Kilimanjaro is bald of snow the tourists will stop coming. “Kilimanjaro is the No. 1 foreign currency earner for the government of Tanzania,” said Thompson. “It has its own international airport and some 20,000 tourists every year. The question is how many will come if there are no ice fields on the mountain.”
SACRED PLACE The mountain is enshrined in literature, most notably Ernest Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and some ancient beliefs in Africa hold the mountain to be a sacred place. Water from the mountain supplies villages and hospitals, and already some are suffering, said Thompson. Scientists raced to drill cores from the shrinking ice field because the frozen layers tell a story of Africa’s ancient weather, and, indirectly, give clues about the global climate. An extremely wet period evidenced in the ice corings matches independent studies that showed about 11,000 years ago the lakes in Africa spilled across vast areas of the continent. Lake Chad, for instance, said Thompson, grew until it covered 135,000 square miles, about the size of the present day Caspian Sea. The African lake now is only about 6,500 square miles.
‘EARTH’S FIRST DARK AGE’ That wet period ended and the ice corings show that Africa slid into a deep drought about 4,000 years ago. This dry period, said Thompson, is also found in other records, including some written history. “This dry period appears in the historic record in Egypt,” he said. “Writings on tombs talk about sand dunes moving across the Nile and people migrating. Some have called this the earth’s first dark age.” Africa was not alone in the global drought. Thompson said other records show that civilizations during this period collapsed in India, the Middle East and South America. Researchers put markers atop the ice field blocks in 1962 and Thompson said measurements using satellites show the summit of the ice has been lowered by about 56 feet in 40 years. The margin of the ice also has retreated more than 6 feet in the past two years, he said. “That’s more than two meters’ worth of ice lost from a wall 50 meters (164 feet) high,” said Thompson. “That’s an enormous amount of ice.”
© 2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
But there wasn't. Probably because none of those people would be able to explain the great drought on our earth over 4000 years ago.
I mean, we had so many factories, industries, and cars back then.
And where was the jubillation from the environmentalists when data suggesting the hole in the ozone was shrinking was released?
Hmmmm.
Global Warming Hoax :
| To find all articles tagged or indexed using Global Warming Hoax , click below: | ||||
| click here >>> | Global Warming Hoax | <<< click here | ||
| (To view all FR Bump Lists, click here) | ||||
A little less than half of the DAILY attendance at Disney World in Florida.
Just so we put this tourism crisis in perspective....
Geologically Killamanjaro is a tripple Volcano and the melting of the ice sheets could be a significant change or a precursor of a eruption.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
