Group warns mountains will lose ice caps (Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya , ~25 to 50 years)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 10/12/06 | Malkhalid M. Muhumed - ap

[NormsRevenge]

NAIROBI, Kenya - Africa's two highest mountains — Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya — will lose their ice cover within 25 to 50 years if deforestation and industrial pollution are not stopped, environmentalists warned Thursday.

Kilimanjaro has already lost 82 percent of its ice cover over 80 years, said Fredrick Njau of the Kenyan Green Belt Movement. Mount Kenya, one of the few places near the equator with permanent glaciers, has lost 92 percent over the past 100 years.

"This is a major issue because declining ice caps mean the water tap is effectively going to be turned off and that is a major concern," said Nick Nuttall from the U.N.'s Environment Program.

All the evidence shows climate change is underway and Africa is the must vulnerable continent to this, he said, adding that foreign aid must address the threat of climate change.

Industrial nations also need to step up support to help poor nations adapt to global warming with drought and heat resistant crops and alternative energy sources so people do not cut down trees for fuel, Nuttall said.

African forests, he added, are soaking up pollution from industrialized nations for free and should reap some kind of reward or benefit for that.

At 19,335 feet, Kilimanjaro is Africa's highest mountain and Mount Kenya is the second-highest. Both are major attractions for mountaineers, hikers and other tourists.

"The two mountains will lose their ice mass in the coming 25 to 50 years if deforestation and industrial pollution are not brought to an end," said Njau, who heads the organization's Mount Kenya Bio-Carbon Project.

The warning came weeks before a major climate summit in Nairobi.

Green Belt Movement, in collaboration with the French Agency for Development, plans to launch a $2 million project to plant 2 million trees in the coming 30 years over an area of 4,942 acres within the areas of Mount Kenya and the Kenyan range of mountains called the Aberdares.

Both are important water catchment areas in Kenya, with many rivers originating from them and these rivers are major sources of water and power generated by dams.

"Deforestation that has a direct link to climactic change has affected negatively on the glaciers on top of Mount Kenya," said Njau. "Millions who depend on the seven rivers that depend on Mount Kenya will be affected because some of the rivers are seasonal and may dry up."

"For more than 20 years, squatters cleared trees surrounding Mount Kenya (to make way) for farming," he said.

"We are trying to offset carbon in the atmosphere and the World Bank told us that they will buy our carbon," through its carbon credits program, Njau said.

Through the Mount Kenya and Aberdares tree-planting project, the Green Belt Movement expects the trees will absorb about 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide before 2017, Njau said.

The World Bank will buy the carbon under the Bio-Carbon Fund that brings together private companies and governments.

Trade in carbon credits has been spurred by the requirements of the Kyoto protocol of the U.N. Framework Treaty on Climate Change. Under the carbon credits program, industrial countries obliged by treaty to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions can get credit for reductions in the poor countries.

[NormsRevenge]

Snow cover the top of Mt. Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa, in this Tuesday, July 22, 2003 file picture.Africa's two highest mountains will lose their ice within 25 to 50 years, a local environmental group said Thursday Oct.12, 2006. Ice will disappear from Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain and Mt. Kenya, which is Africa's second highest if deforestation and industrial pollution is not stopped, said Fredrick Njau of the Kenyan Green Belt Movement.Mt. Kilimanjaro has already lost 82 percent of its ice cover over 80 years, said Njau Mt. Kenya, one of the few places near the equator with permanent glaciers, has lost 92 percent of its ice over the past 100 years.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)

[DuncanWaring]

Seattle has already lost all of its ice cap!!!

[bpjam]

Then the african should go bitch at the Chinese and the India since those are the countries doing nothing to stop 'global warming'. And in 25 to 50 years, we will be in a different solar cycle and they will start whining about how cold it is in the Sahara and we'll have to pretend that we give a sh!t.

[SIDENET]

Are we doomed yet?

[billhilly]

I'm 69. Hope I live to see it.

[NormsRevenge]

Mount Kilimanjaro's Glacier Is Crumbling
Andrea Minarcek
National Geographic Adventure
September 23, 2003

Last January, amateur adventurer Vince Keipper realized a long-time goal when he trekked to the top of Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro. But the view from Africa's 19,340-foot (5,895-meter) rooftop hardly compared to what he saw on the way up the mountain's Western Breach.

"The sound brought our group to a stop," Keipper recalled. "We turned around to see the ice mass collapse with a roar. A section of the glacier crumbled in the middle, and chunks of ice as big as rooms spilled out on the crater floor."

Keipper grabbed his camera just in time to capture a section of Kilimanjaro's massive Furtwängler Glacier spilling onto the same trail his group had ascended the very night before.

Keipper's photos speak for themselves, dramatic proof of a scientific near-certainty: Kilimanjaro's glaciers are disappearing. The ice fields Ernest Hemingway once described as "wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun" have lost 82 percent of their ice since 1912—the year their full extent was first measured.

If current climatic conditions persist, the legendary glaciers, icing the peaks of Africa's highest summit for nearly 12,000 years, could be gone entirely by 2020.

"Just connect the dots," said Ohio State University

--snip--

---

Photo courtesy of Vincent Keipper

Dr. Vincent Keipper was in the right place at the right time to get this photo of the crumbling Furtwängler Glacier on Mt. Kilimanjaro. The photo is dramatic evidence of the glacier's recession. Room-size blocks of ice tumbled across the trail Keipper had hiked the day before.

[TexasTransplant]

Yea and we were supposed to have 17 Hurricanes this year as well.

TT

[Northern Yankee]

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!

[HawaiianGecko]

Geeze... and they say Bush campaigns on fear.  The silver lining in this cloud is more land to develop condos on.

 

[NormsRevenge]

Snow and Ice on Kilimanjaro
NASA Earth Observatory

[Editor’s note: This image record was first published on NASA’s Earth Observatory on December 20, 2002, under the title “Melting Snows of Kilimanjaro.” On March 25, 2005, the caption was modified from the original version to clarify interpretation of the images above.]

Mount Kilimanjaro has been called “The Shining Mountain.” Some scientists say Kilimanjaro’s peak may soon shine no more. According to Professor Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University, Kilimanjaro’s ice fields could be gone by the year 2020. In his October 18, 2002, article in the journal Science, Thompson and his co-authors note that the ice on the summit, which formed more than 11,000 years ago, has dwindled by 82 percent over the past century. The authors note that the recent, dramatic decline in Kilimanjaro’s ice cap is particularly remarkable given its persistence through many previous shifts in climate, including a severe 300-year-long drought that impacted human populations living in the area about 4,000 years ago.

The images above show two perspective views of Mt. Kilimanjaro on Feb. 17, 1993 (top), and on Feb. 21, 2000 (bottom). These images were acquired by the Landsat 5 and Landsat 7 satellites, respectively. The scenes show heavily vegetated terrain (green colors) around the foot of Kilimanjaro, while the vegetation is relatively sparse up the flanks of the 5,895-meter-tall (19,335-foot) stratovolcano. The light browns at higher elevations show mostly rock and bare land surface, revealing the crisscrossing drainage patterns etched into Kilimanjaro’s face over the millennia by rain and snowmelt. Here, the images have been draped over a digital elevation model to give a better sense of the mountain’s three-dimensional shape.

It should be noted that the differences in the summit’s appearance in these scenes are due in large part to seasonal variations in snow cover. It is not possible to distinguish seasonal snow from ice in these images, so they cannot be used as an indication of the rate of the loss of ice.

The earliest well-documented map of the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro was made in 1912. At least four surveys made since 1912 reveal there has been an ongoing decline in the extent of the ice. For more details, please see Tanzania - Mt. Kilimanjaro (2000). Courtesy of Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson, here is a recent color-coded map of the decline Kilimanjaro’s ice cap.

[dgallo51]

Okay, it's the Nuremberg Styled Global Warming Tribunal for you pal! (Sarcasm)

[Rb ver. 2.0]

It's all irrelevent when the volcano blows, save the damage that won't happen due to melting snow mud flows.

[VOA]

Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya — will lose their ice cover within 25
to 50 years if deforestation and industrial pollution are not stopped,
environmentalists warned Thursday.

And if yuppy ecotourists keep flying in and out of the airport near
Mt. Kilimanjaro and keep breathing, peeing and poopin' on it...well, I guess
when thousands do that each year, there are some local heat inputs.

Not to mention the hot-air ballons floating around the place.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

It is my understanding that the ice cap on the mountain is shrinking because of the extended drought that Africa is now having. Nothing to do with "climatic warming."

[dirtboy]

In his October 18, 2002, article in the journal Science, Thompson and his co-authors note that the ice on the summit, which formed more than 11,000 years ago

And why were there no glaciers on the summit 11,000 years ago? Cavemen driving SUVs on their way to a dinner of roast duck with mango salsa?

[NormsRevenge]

Mt. Kenya .. some good pics

[onyx]

LOL --- exactly.

[NormsRevenge]

Lake Alice, Mt. Kenya

[dirtboy]

Now, now, don't go confusing the little dears. You might end up on trial in the great Global Warming Denial Trials. Sentenced to be jailed while listening to all the bad albums that REM has put out after Document.

[Fitzcarraldo]

the mountain itself formed 11,000 years ago?