Kilimanjaro Glaciers

Just over a century ago, glacier ice encircled the summit crater of Kilimanjaro, with perhaps only the inner Reusch Crater free of ice. (On the image above, the Reusch Crater is the middle, or second largest, of the three depicted. For scale, it is ~800 m in diameter.) Although their areal extent is now greatly reduced, as evident on this July 2009 image, the glaciers remain both beautiful and scientifically fascinating.

I wrote an overview of the mountain's glaciers that has just been published by Springer, as a contribution to their new Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. The Kilimanjaro chapter briefly describes the history of glacier research on the mountain, and describes what makes these ice masses unique. It is available here.