Kilimanjaro Ice Field Shrinks and Splits

Another ominous sign that Mount Kilimanjaro's ice fields may disappear in 50 years has emerged.

What was once the largest remaining ice field on Kilimanjaro shrank and separated into two pieces, a research expedition discovered in September. The summit's northern ice field now has a rift large enough to ride a bike through, Kimberly Casey, a glaciologist based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told NASA's Earth Observatory.

The gap is visible in an image acquired by the Advanced Land Imager on NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite on Oct. 26 and in panoramic images Casey captured during the research expedition.  LiveScience