Lonnie Thompson, Department of Geological Sciences, and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center, this week begins his expedition to Mount Kilamanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain. Thompson’s team plans on retrieving four cores drilled through the 100-meter-thick ice fields that surround the mountain’s 19,000-foot-high summit. The cores should contain a record of the region’s climate that could span centuries.

The ice fields at the mountain’s summit were once much more extensive than they are now, but they have been shrinking over past years and researchers fear the climate records will be lost forever if the melting continues. Along with his colleague, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, professor of geography, Thompson has spent more than 20 years retrieving climatic records trapped in the world's ice caps and glaciers.

More Information

The Ice Core Paleoclimatology Group

Paleoclimatology Group Research Findings

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