Hello everybody,
The front of Monday's Guardian has a large photo of the summit
of Kilimanjaro without much snow, and the caption suggests that it now
has less snow than at any time in the last 11,000 years and this is due
to Global Warming and has occurred 15 years ahead of the predicted time
and isn't it dreadful.
I wonder how much of this is true. I have read elsewhere that
the mountain has less snow on it now due to the climate simply being
drier. How much of a change in temperature has there been near the
equator at the 500 mb level, just about the height of Kilimanjaro? And
has it got drier recently?
There is no doubt the world is a warmer place than it was 100
years ago but by less than 1°C. Is that enough on its own to remove
the snow from Kilimanjaro? On the other hand there are large
variations in precipitation amounts over periods of decades,
particularly in low latitudes, eg the Sahel.
Does anyone have any figures relating to this?

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.