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.
Mount Kilimanjaro's glacier is crumbling
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 geologist Lonnie Thompson. "If things remain as they have, in 15 years [Kilimanjaro's glaciers] will be gone."
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