Kana-Ka-Nsungu
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 4, 2007
- 2,257
- 353
Ni kweli..... hilo barafu huko kileleni mwa mlima likishayeyuka likaisha, idadi ya watalii itakuwa affected kwa sana. Sasa serekali yetu inafanya nini au kuna mikakati gani kuhusu suala hili?
Is global warming melting the ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro?
Global warming appears to be melting the ice on Tanzanias Mt. Kilimanjaro. The summits glaciers are likely to be gone within a few decades
Thats the word from a study appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
But global warming may not be the whole story behind Mt. Kilimanjaro and its environs. And therein lies a tale of how human activities may affect local and regional climate in ways that can mask or reinforce a long-term warming trend.
Understanding those effects is critical to devising strategies for adapting to global warming at regional or local levels.
The new results showing how quickly ice is melting on Mt. Kilimanjaros iconic summit comes from the lab of Lonnie Thompson, an Ohio State University glaciologist who has spent his career studying the climate records trapped in mountain glaciers in the tropics. (For a good read on his work, snag a copy of the book Thin Ice by Mark Bowen.)
Among the findings:
The summit lost 80 percent of its ice between 1912 and 2007. Some 26 percent of the ice present in 2000, Dr. Thompsons last trip to the summit, vanished by the end of the period. The Furtwangler Ice Field in particular has lost 50 percent of its thickness since 2000. At that pace, it will vanish into a damp patch of summit soil by 2018. Glaciers on Mt. Kilimajaros flanks have lost some 40 percent of their area between 2000 and 2007.
One ice core Thompsons team pulled hosts oblong air bubbles at the top. Those bubbles signal repeated melting and refreezing, something that fails to appear at any other point along the core, which spans 11,700 years.
Even during a 300-year-long drought the region experienced 4,200 years ago, the cores show no evidence of melting and refreezing during that drought.
The ice loss is bad news for Tanzania, Thompson explains in an e-mail exchange. Tanzanias main source of foreign currency is tourism. When the glaciers vanish, will the mountain still draw 30,000 to 40,000 tourists a year, as it does now? (About 10,000 a year try to climb it.) And farmers at the mountains base rely on glacial melt water for irrigation.
Mountain glaciers in tropical South America and the Himalayas are undergoing similar changes, Thompsons work shows.
It is the balance of evidence and global nature of glacier-ice loss throughout the tropics that points to global climate change as the driver, he writes.
But what about the actions of folks at the base of the mountain? Might deforestation clearing trees for farmland have led to changes in temperatures and precipitation patterns that have at least contributed to, if not driven, changes at the summit?
After all, researchers have found that since 1971, temperatures at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro have been rising faster than global warming alone would account for.
We have no way of knowing how much of that, if any, is transmitted to the summit ice fields some 15,000 feet above the base, Thompson acknowledges. You can download a full copy of the study, as a pdf, here.
So if the impact on the summit remains unclear, that same cant be said for the base. If Kilimanjaro becomes iconic, perhaps it deserves that status as much for the impact of human land-use changes on local and regional climate, as for the broader trend of long-term global warming.
Indeed, an increasing number of studies are suggesting that the intensity of long-term effects from global warming locally can be affected by land-use practices in the area.
Is global warming melting the ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro?
Global warming appears to be melting the ice on Tanzanias Mt. Kilimanjaro. The summits glaciers are likely to be gone within a few decades
Thats the word from a study appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
But global warming may not be the whole story behind Mt. Kilimanjaro and its environs. And therein lies a tale of how human activities may affect local and regional climate in ways that can mask or reinforce a long-term warming trend.
Understanding those effects is critical to devising strategies for adapting to global warming at regional or local levels.
The new results showing how quickly ice is melting on Mt. Kilimanjaros iconic summit comes from the lab of Lonnie Thompson, an Ohio State University glaciologist who has spent his career studying the climate records trapped in mountain glaciers in the tropics. (For a good read on his work, snag a copy of the book Thin Ice by Mark Bowen.)
Among the findings:
The summit lost 80 percent of its ice between 1912 and 2007. Some 26 percent of the ice present in 2000, Dr. Thompsons last trip to the summit, vanished by the end of the period. The Furtwangler Ice Field in particular has lost 50 percent of its thickness since 2000. At that pace, it will vanish into a damp patch of summit soil by 2018. Glaciers on Mt. Kilimajaros flanks have lost some 40 percent of their area between 2000 and 2007.
One ice core Thompsons team pulled hosts oblong air bubbles at the top. Those bubbles signal repeated melting and refreezing, something that fails to appear at any other point along the core, which spans 11,700 years.
Even during a 300-year-long drought the region experienced 4,200 years ago, the cores show no evidence of melting and refreezing during that drought.
The ice loss is bad news for Tanzania, Thompson explains in an e-mail exchange. Tanzanias main source of foreign currency is tourism. When the glaciers vanish, will the mountain still draw 30,000 to 40,000 tourists a year, as it does now? (About 10,000 a year try to climb it.) And farmers at the mountains base rely on glacial melt water for irrigation.
Mountain glaciers in tropical South America and the Himalayas are undergoing similar changes, Thompsons work shows.
It is the balance of evidence and global nature of glacier-ice loss throughout the tropics that points to global climate change as the driver, he writes.
But what about the actions of folks at the base of the mountain? Might deforestation clearing trees for farmland have led to changes in temperatures and precipitation patterns that have at least contributed to, if not driven, changes at the summit?
After all, researchers have found that since 1971, temperatures at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro have been rising faster than global warming alone would account for.
We have no way of knowing how much of that, if any, is transmitted to the summit ice fields some 15,000 feet above the base, Thompson acknowledges. You can download a full copy of the study, as a pdf, here.
So if the impact on the summit remains unclear, that same cant be said for the base. If Kilimanjaro becomes iconic, perhaps it deserves that status as much for the impact of human land-use changes on local and regional climate, as for the broader trend of long-term global warming.
Indeed, an increasing number of studies are suggesting that the intensity of long-term effects from global warming locally can be affected by land-use practices in the area.
