Study: Kilimanjaro ice melting fast

A new study says that ice on Mount Kilimanjaro, the African mountain - made famous by writer Ernest Hemingway - is rapidly melting.

The study has been published in the US National Academy of Sciences journal. It says the white-capped mountain lost 26 percent of its ice cover between 2000 and 2007.

And 85 percent of the ice that made up the mountaintop glaciers in 1912 had gone by 2007. The research blames warmer temperatures due to climate change and drier, less cloudy conditions.

The study says the northern ice field on Kilimanjaro thinned by 1.9 meters and the southern ice field by 5.1 meters between 2000 and 2007.

Kilimanjaro is situated northeast of Tanzania, and is about 5,900 meters high. Its ice can be dated back 11,700 years.