Around
the world, glaciers are disappearing as a result of global warming. Tanzania's
Mount Kilimanjaro provides a clear example of this impact of climate change.
Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the few places in the world where ice and snow can be found on the equator. However, the world's highest free-standing mountain could lose its entire ice field by 2015 due to climate change.
The latest science says that due to climate change, 80 percent of Kilimanjaro's glaciers have melted over the last century.It is predicted that the rest will be gone in the next 15 to 20 years.
Greenpeace
sent an expedition to the "Shining Mountain" from 30 November
- 9 December 2001 to bear witness to these impacts of climate change.
Joris
Thijssen, Greenpeace climate campaigner recounts his experience of the
expedition.
Listen to Joris's account and view more photographs of the expedition in the following formats.
| Real Player | Quick Time |
| Part One | Part One |
Download
Real Player. |
Download and install
QuickTime. |
"As a climate campaigner with Greenpeace you read about all the dramatic impacts that climate change has and will have on the environment and the lives of people all around the world.
I wanted to see it for myself, I wanted to witness climate change and make other people a witness to it. So when Greenpeace decided to go to Mount Kilimanjaro, I was more than happy to join the expedition.
Mount Kilimanjaro's fast-melting glaciers symbolise the fact that climate change may be felt first and hardest by the environment and people of Africa.
Could we visualise this immense impact?
To find out more, read on, view the slide show and listen to the illustrated radio pieces of our trek up the tallest free-standing mountain in the world.
My account of the expedition is divided into two parts. Part Two will follow shortly."
For more information:
Climate change impacts on glaciers around the world (pdf), Greenpeace briefing.
Climate change impacts around the world (pdf), Greenpeace briefing.
6 November 2001: Kilimanjaro set to lose its ice field by 2015 due to climate change.
View the satellite images of Mount Kilimanjaro on the NASA site:
Kilimanjaro glacier
Nov. 1990 and Dec. 2000:
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?7636
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?7676
More snow and ice
images:
http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/Cryosphere/Snow_Ice/
The World Glacier Monitoring service