Das Projekt "Climate change and ice cap history on Kilimanjaro: Application of direct field measurements and large-scale gridded data to a physical mass balance model (CCIK)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Geographie durchgeführt. Glaciers around the world have retreated over the 20th century, which is also true of tropical glaciers. Although the characteristics of tropical glaciers (a high sensitivity to moisture-related climate variables) also apply to the glaciers on Kilimanjaro (Equatorial East Africa), studying their behavior requires a special view. This is because different glacier systems exist on Kilimanjaro: tabular-shaped ice bodies on the summit plateau, and slope glaciers below the summit plateau on the mountains steep flanks. The plateau glaciers are margined by vertical ice cliffs that - once they are established - lead to an irreversible areal recession of the plateau glaciers, regardless of the mass balance on the plateau glaciers horizontal surface. A preceding project could demonstrate that the main climatic reason of the current glacier retreat on Kilimanjaro (which commenced around 1880) is a regionally drier climate since the late 19th century, and that the glaciers show a much higher sensitivity to precipitation fluctuations than to air temperature changes. It also became clear that current climate pushes the glaciers close to disappearance, which raises the question under which climate conditions those glaciers could form and exist at all. The present project therefore aims at reconstructing at least 500 years of glacier history on Kilimanjaro and climate change in the tropics, to identify potential phases of an ice-free summit of Africas highest mountain. Since other precipitation-sensitive proxies (particularly lake levels) indicate greater climate fluctuations before 1880 than afterwards, it is likely that glacier existence on Kilimanjaro summit follows a relatively short-term cycle. On-site meteorological measurements with automatic weather stations will continue in the proposed project, in order to run.
Das Projekt "Climate change and precipitation variability in the tropics: An assessment for highaltitude regions with data obtained near the summit of Kilimanjaro (Climate change Kilimanjaro)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Innsbruck, Institut für Geographie durchgeführt. Here I propose to investigate the vertical variation of precipitation variability on a tropical high mountain (Kilimanjaro, 5895 m a.s.l.), in order to expand knowledge of climate variability in the tropics. On Kilimanjaro (located in Equatorial East Africa: 3.1Grad C S / 37.4Grad C E), we are currently recording unique climate data in the summit region (see section 3). This happens within efforts to understand the glacier-climate interaction and recession of glaciers on Africas highest mountain as well as the large-scale climate dynamics behind. Here, the specific questions are: (1) Is precipitation variability at higher altitude of similar magnitude to the one at low altitudes? (2) Which physics (of the atmosphere) are responsible for the spatially even or uneven precipitation variability with altitude?