Tourists
who desire to see Mount Kilimanjaro snows now have a reason to smile, as local
ecologists say –“the ice is here to stay”.
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Mount Klimanjaro recent out look photo |
Kilimanjaro National Park ecologist, Imani Kikoti told a
team of visiting journalists here that the glacier is till sufficient contrary
to earlier projection that would vanish between 2015 to 2020.
Prof. Lonnie Thompson from United States of America, in
2002 declared that the snow could disappear within 15 years from that time due
to effects of climate change.
“We are comfortable that the ice will not disappear as it
was predicted by an American academician” Mr Kikoti said, adding that there are
several ongoing studies on the same.
According to him, several initiatives such as massive
tree planting around the mountain have somehow mitigated because they boosted
the forest cover and consequently reduced the effects of global warming.
He implored residents of Kilimanjaro to continue planting
the tree if the snow of the Mount Kilimanjaro, a major tourist’s attraction
will remain steady.
Acting KINAPA Park warden, Eva Mallya, said that majority
of tourists who climb mount Kilimanjaro every year are normally thrilled by the
permanent ice-caped summit, than anything else.
For instance, last financial year, Mount Kilimanjaro
attracted over 50,000 tourists across the world, leaving behind around Tsh 80
billion to the economy.
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."
When
Thompson's reports of glacial recession on Kilimanjaro first emerged in 2002,
the story was quickly picked up and trumpeted as another example of humans
destroying nature.
It's easy to see why: Ice fields in the tropics—Kilimanjaro
lies about 220 miles (350 kilometers) south of the Equator—are particularly
susceptible to climate change, and even the slightest temperature fluctuation
can have devastating effects.
"There's
a tendency for people to take this temperature increase and draw quick
conclusions, which is a mistake," said Douglas R. Hardy, a climatologist
at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who monitored Kilimanjaro's
glaciers from mountain top weather stations since 2000.
"The real
explanations are much more complex. Global warming plays a part, but a variety
of factors are really involved."
According to
Hardy, forest reduction in the areas surrounding Kilimanjaro, and not global
warming, might be the strongest human influence on glacial recession.
"Clearing for agriculture and forest fires—often caused by honey
collectors trying to smoke bees out of their hives—have greatly reduced the
surrounding forests," he says. The loss of foliage causes less moisture to
be pumped into the atmosphere, leading to reduced cloud cover and precipitation
and increased solar radiation and glacial evaporation.
Evidence of
glacial recession on Kilimanjaro is often dated from 1912, but most scientists
believe tropical glaciers began receding as early as the 1850s.
Stefan L. Hastenrath, a professor of
atmospheric studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has found clues in
local reports of a dramatic drop in East African lake levels after 1880. Lake
evaporation indicates a decrease in precipitation and cloudiness around
Kilimanjaro.
"Less
cloud coverage lets more sunlight filter through and hit the glaciers,"
Hastenrath said. "That increase in sunlight then provides more energy for
evaporation of the glacier."
Hastenrath
found further evidence in sailing expedition reports from the same period.