Glaciers
The glaciers on Mount Kenya are retreating rapidly. The Mountain Club of Kenya in Nairobi has photographs showing the mountain when it was first climbed in 1899, and again more recently, and the retreat of the glaciers is very evident. Descriptions of ascents of several of the peaks advise on the use of crampons, but now there is no ice to be found. There is no new snow to be found, even on the Lewis Glacier (the largest of them) in winter, so no new ice will be formed. It is predicted to be less than 30 years before there will no longer be ice on Mount Kenya. Glacial retreat and disappearance can be caused by change in temperature trends, or by change in precipitation trends.
The glacier names are (clockwise from the north):
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- Northey, Krapf, Gregory, Lewis, Diamond, Darwin, Forel, Heim, Tyndall, Cesar, Josef.
The area of glaciers on the mountain was measured in the 1980s, and recorded as about 0.7 km2 (0.27 sq mi). This is far smaller than the first observations, made in the 1890s.
Read more about this topic: Mount Kenya