Mount Kilimanjaro

Current conditions

While the volcano appears to be dormant on the inside, it is the events that are taking place on top of the mountain that are drawing global attention recently.

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The snow cap that has covered the top of the mountain for the past 11,000 years since the last ice age is rapidly disappearing. Over the past century, the ice cap volume has dropped by more than 80%http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/stories/kilimanjaro_20021216/index.html. In 2002, many experts in the field predicted that within 15 years all of the snow on top of Africa's tallest peak would be gone. In March 2005, it was reported that the peak was now almost bare, for the first time in 11,000 years http://www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/0,3604,1437497,00.html. This is not due to any temperature changes, but is instead due to a lack of snowfall. It is thought that deforestation over the past century has lead to a decrease in moisture reaching the summit and turning into snowfall.

Related Topics:
Ice age - 2002 - 2005

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"This 3-D perspective view was generated using topographic data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), a Landsat 7 satellite image, and a false sky. Topographic expression is vertically exaggerated two times."

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