According to the findings of a new study, led by glaciologist Lonnie Thompson at Ohio State University in Columbus, the famous snow and ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro will likely vanish in the next 25 years or so, owing to climate change.

The study, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, based on ice-core analysis, confirms that during the years from 2022 to 2033, Africa’s highest peak will probably be ice-free for the first time in nearly 12,000 years.

Saying that his team examined the volume of ice loss as well as the surface coverage to arrive at the conclusions of the recent study, Thompson added that it was found that not only was the ice diminishing in size, it was also thinning at a fairly rapid pace, equivalent to the volume of its lateral shrinking.

To determine the pace at which the ice is disappearing, the research team made a collective analysis of the measurements of ice area from aerial photographs, along with the ground measurements of changes in ice thickness.

In their report, Thompson and his colleagues said: “Of the ice cover present in 1912, 85% has disappeared and 26% of that present in 2000 is now gone. In the 2002 report, we showed what we expected would happen. This paper showed that by 2007, the loss of ice is right on track.”