Mt. Kilimanjaro: blog.gohoto.com
The New Scientist reports a new paper by Nicholas Pepin from the University of Portsmouth and his colleagues which suggests that extensive local deforestation in recent decades has likely reduced this flow of warm, moist air up the Kilimanjaro mountainside depleting the mountain’s icy hood. Trees play an important role here by providing moisture through transpiration which add to the ice cap.
The montane circulation on Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and its relevance for the summit ice fields: Comparison of surface mountain climate with equivalent reanalysis parameters
by N.C. Pepin, W.J. Duane and D.R. Hardy
Article in press: Global and Planetary Change
Of course it’s possible that global warming led – by some unknown mechanism – to the deforestation — but it seems highly unlikely.
The k2p blog 