Kilimanjaro ice core records: Evidence of Holocene climate change in tropical Africa

Six ice cores from Kilimanjaro provide an similar to11.7-thousand-year record of Holocene climate and environmental variability for eastern equatorial Africa, including three periods of abrupt climate change: similar to8.3, similar to5.2 and similar to4 thousand years ago (ka). The latter is coincident with the "First Dark Age," the period of the greatest historically recorded drought in tropical Africa. Variable deposition of F- and Na+ during the African Humid Period suggests rapidly fluctuating lake levels between similar to11.7 and 4 ka. Over the 20th century, the areal extent of Kilimanjaro's ice fields has decreased similar to80%, and if current climatological conditions persist, the remaining ice fields are likely to disappear between 2015 and 2020.