THE snowy peaks and glaciers on mountains close to the equator in Africa have always seemed a touch improbable, and within two decades they could indeed vanish.
A survey of the glaciers on the Rwenzori Mountains has revealed that the glaciers are receding tens of metres each year. A century ago they covered nearly 6.5 square kilometres of the mountains, which lie on the equator in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Less than 1 km2 of ice remains. Richard Taylor of University College London and colleagues at UCL, Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and the Ugandan Water Resources Management Department used field surveys and satellite mapping to reach this conclusion.
“The glaciers now cover less than a sixth of the area they spanned a century ago”
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In the Rwenzori Mountains, Taylor’s team found temperatures have been increasing since the 1960s without significant changes in precipitation (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2006GL025962). Glaciers are also shrinking on Mount Kenya, at the equator, and Mount Kilimanjaro, a few hundred kilometres away.
