Kilimanjaro Ice Core Records: Evidence of Holocene Climate Change in Tropical Africa
Six ice cores from Kilimanjaro provide an ∼11.7-thousand-year record of Holocene climate and environmental variability for eastern equatorial Africa, including three periods of abrupt climate change: ∼8.3, ∼5.2, and ∼4 thousand years ago (ka). The latter is coincident with the “First Dark Age,” the...
Published in: | Science |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
2002
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1073198 https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1073198 |
Summary: | Six ice cores from Kilimanjaro provide an ∼11.7-thousand-year record of Holocene climate and environmental variability for eastern equatorial Africa, including three periods of abrupt climate change: ∼8.3, ∼5.2, and ∼4 thousand years ago (ka). The latter is coincident with the “First Dark Age,” the period of the greatest historically recorded drought in tropical Africa. Variable deposition of F – and Na + during the African Humid Period suggests rapidly fluctuating lake levels between ∼11.7 and 4 ka. Over the 20th century, the areal extent of Kilimanjaro's ice fields has decreased ∼80%, and if current climatological conditions persist, the remaining ice fields are likely to disappear between 2015 and 2020. |
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