Friday, July 23, 2010

Two new publications

This week, two new papers add to our knowledge of Kilimanjaro's glaciers.  Georg Kaser is first author on "Is the decline of ice on Kilimanjaro unprecedented in the Holocene?" published (appropriately enough) in The Holocene.  The paper sets forth a hypothesis that the glaciers may be only hundreds of years old, rather than 11,700 - as detailed in the only other paper published on the matter (Thompson et al., 2002).  A link to this new paper, as well as the 2002 paper in Science, are provided to the right.  The quest for definitive dates on the ice is underway!

A second new paper is primarily the work of Ph.D. student Michael Winkler (Innsbruck), and published in Erdkunde (in English). "Land-based marginal ice cliffs: focus on Kilimanjaro" will be of interest to anyone familiar with - or intrigued by - the unique vertical walls of Kilimanjaro glaciers. The paper is also available from our publications link.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Dry season underway

As typically the case, the beginning of June marked the transition from accumulation to ablation on the Northern Ice Field. Two sensors are used to measure changes in surface height, and while one indicates less than 5 cm of ablation the other shows 20-25 cm (with the average being -11.5 cm). In both cases the decrease is more-or-less continuous through the month.