Kilimanjaro Glaciers: Recent areal extent from satellite data and new interpretation of observed 20th century retreat rates

Cullen, Nicolas J.; Mölg, Thomas; Kaser, Georg; Hussein, Khalid; Steffen, Konrad; Hardy, Douglas R.

doi:10.1029/2006gl027084

Cited by 74 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Hastenrath and Kruss (1992) proposed that continued glacier recession from 1963 until 1987 was mainly caused by an increase in atmospheric humidity that forced more efficient use of available energy to increase melting. More recently, Mölg et al (2003), Kaser et al (2004), Cullen et al (2006), and Mölg et al (2009) proposed that the 20th century recession of Kilimanjaro's glaciers was driven entirely by decreasing precipitation and atmospheric drying. As part of the proof, Mölg and Hardy (2004), Cullen et al (2007) and Mölg et al (2008Mölg et al ( , 2009 showed, using energy and mass-balance modelling, that the retreat of Kilimanjaro glaciers since 2000 reflects atmospheric aridity and the associated increased receipt of solar radiation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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terra australis 32Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present.Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for South-East Asia and blue for the Pacific Islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. Copyright of the text remains with the contributors/authors, 2009. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. Among saltbush greyer than seaweed we boardwalk the yeasting waves of the old golden-perch pond. List of volumes in Terra AustralisRabbit dung dots a lake bottom dry since their coming -only once, last century, after seven inches of rain a farmer had to rescue his sheep by boat.The roo bounces down-slope, a brown branch crackling.The professor's eye, noting the local runoff and what the westerlies do, observes seas that rush in and out of a continent's middle, salt lakes spreading and emptying, hills pimpling up and down with cartoon-like speed, or gullying themselves into extinction, rainforests and deserts zipping back and forth like Tom and Jerry. A human mouse plague swiftly swarms, perhaps soon gone.Impermanent planet. Impermanent surface. All under air and water. The lunette is a wave, a dumper of sand, a collapsing tower in the mad rabbit years when its top blew off and old bones winked through, with a vault's worth of fine stone cores.Once so simply mislaid in sand, now so obligingly sluiced out to the un-subincised world that smiles at stone knives. terra australis 32Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes v You might as well offer your table knife to a carpenter.Cane grass and the Dreamtime's stone fight the eroding rivulets together. In today's rare downpour each lost core, or blunted scraper crowns some tiny eroding hillock, plops its anchor in the dissolving silts.The bettong whose skin took off the stone tool's edge has vanished -sacrifice to future fertility.Through the softening soil Homo sapiens's skeleton bumps up like a carp's back.Waits for the wind to shave it off in pieces.A D-section and a ti...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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“…The importance of atmospheric moisture for present glacier mass balance has also been demonstrated on Kilimanjaro by intensified research over the last few years (e.g. Mölg and Hardy, 2004;Cullen et al, 2006; Section 2). Still, different glacier systems exist on Kilimanjaro (see below), and the mass balance-climate link of a sloping glacier surface has not yet been examined in detail.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Mass balance of a slope glacier on Kilimanjaro and its sensitivity to climate

Mölg

Cullen

Hardy

et al. 2007

Intl Journal of Climatology

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145

229

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Meteorological and glaciological measurements obtained at 5873 m a.s.l. on Kersten Glacier, a slope glacier on the southern flanks of Kilimanjaro, are used to run a physically-based mass balance model for the period February 2005 to January 2006. This shows that net shortwave radiation is the most variable energy flux at the glacier-atmosphere interface, governed by surface albedo. The majority of the mass loss (∼65%) is due to sublimation (direct conversion of snow/ice to water vapour), with melting of secondary importance. Sensitivity experiments reveal that glacier mass balance is 2-4 times more sensitive to a 20% precipitation change than to a 1°C air temperature change. These figures also hold when the model is run with input data representative of a longer term mean period. Results suggest that a regional-scale moisture projection for the 21st century is crucial to a physically-based prediction of glacier retention on Africa's highest mountain.

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“…In summary, there is consensus that glacier loss on Kilimanjaro continues (1)(2)(3) and that global warming has probably impacted this loss in recent decades (1, 2), most likely through regional shifts in precipitation zones that result from large-scale warming of air and oceans (ref. …”

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confidence: 99%