• DOI:10.1177/0959683610369498
• Corpus ID: 16945088

Is the decline of ice on Kilimanjaro unprecedented in the Holocene?

@article{Kaser2010IsTD,
  title={Is the decline of ice on Kilimanjaro unprecedented in the Holocene?},
  author={Georg Kaser and Thomas M{\"o}lg and Nicolas J. Cullen and Douglas R. Hardy and Michael Winkler},
  journal={The Holocene},
  year={2010},
  volume={20},
  pages={1079 - 1091}
}

• G. Kaser, T. Mölg, +2 authors M. Winkler
• Published 19 July 2010
• Environmental Science
• The Holocene

Glaciers on Kilimanjaro’s highest peak, Kibo, are currently regarded as a persistent feature of the Holocene. Here we synthesize all available measurements, observations, and our understanding of current processes on Kibo — gained from intensive research over the past decade — to formulate an alternative hypothesis about the age of these ice fields. This suggests a shorter, discontinuous history of the tabular-shaped glaciers on Kibo’s plateau, where typical ‘life cycles’ of the ice may last only a few hundred years. If life cycles overlap, they are likely the cause of the observed steps in the plateau glaciers. Thus, it is likely that ice has come and gone repeatedly on Kibo’s summit plateau, throughout the Holocene. Such a cyclicity is supported by lake-derived proxy records.