Northern Ice Field

The Northern Ice Field is near the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, on the west slope of the peak. The Northern Ice Field and Eastern Ice Fields were connected to the Southern Ice Field and formed part of a continuous body of glacial ice atop Mount Kilimanjaro when first scientifically examined in 1912. By 1962 the Southern Ice Field separated from the Northern Ice Field and then by 1975 the Eastern Ice Field did as well. In 1912, the glaciated areas atop Mount Kilimanjaro covered 11.40 square kilometres (4.40 sq mi); by 2011 this had been reduced to 1.76 square kilometres (0.68 sq mi), an 85 percent loss. At one time, ice flowing off the Northern Ice Field fed numerous glaciers, including, north to south, the Credner, Drygalski, Great Penck and Little Penck Glaciers. The Northern Ice Field is the largest body of ice remaining on Mount Kilimanjaro, with an area of 0.95 square kilometres (0.37 sq mi), when measured in 2007. During the exceptionally cold period known as the Younger Dryas, which occurred approximately 12,800 and 11,500 years BP (between 10, 800 and 9500 BC), Mount Kilimanjaro may have been ice-free. While conditions during the Younger Dryas were cold enough to support ice, it was also exceptionally dry, so much so that the region where Mount Kilimanjaro is located was semi-desert. Ice core samples taken from the Northern Ice Field date only from the end of

Glacier data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).