The snow and ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro may soon be gone. The African Mountain’s white peak is rapidly melting and has almost disappeared. It has been rapidly melting at the rate of about a foot and a half of glacial ice loss per year. About 85% of the ice that made up the mountaintop glaciers in 1912 was gone by 2007. And, more than a quarter of the ice present in 2000 was gone by 2007. Changes in cloudiness and snowfall may play a role in the rapid melting, but the primary reason is an increasing average temperatures through the region. Scientists speculate that the glaciers could be completely gone from Kilimanjaro by 2015. For Landsat images showing the decreasing glaciers and snow regions, go to this website:

http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003100/a003125/index.html