SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO MAY SOON BE LOST

The snows of Kilimanjaro may soon be gone. The African mountain's white peak -- made famous by writer Ernest Hemingway -- is rapidly melting, researchers report.

Some 85 percent of the ice that made up the mountaintop glaciers in 1912 was gone by 2007, researchers led by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University report in Tuesday's edition ofProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And more than a quarter of the ice present in 2000 was gone by 2007.

If current conditions continue "the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro will not endure," the researchers said.

The Kilimanjaro glaciers are both shrinking, as the ice at their edges melts, and thinning, the researchers found.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/mount-kilimanjaro-glaciers-melt.html