Tuesday, June 16, 2009

"Mountains of the Moon" losing snow and ice cover

It's inevitable, really, as the globe warms: rare tropical mountain ice fields will fade into memory.

Lifestyle melts away with Uganda peak snow cap

A bit of history:
Where are the Mountains of the Moon?

"In the 2nd Century, C.E. Greek geographer Ptolemy wrote of the existence of snow capped mountains near the Equator in Africa. The idea seemed preposterous. Yet, for centuries the rumour of these mountains – which Ptolemy named Lunae Montes or Mountains of the Moon – persisted. However the search for the mountains of the moon proved futile. That was until one day in the late nineteenth century when Henry Stanley – who won fame for finding Dr. David Livingstone – happened to be in the right place at the right time. Normally cloud cover would obscure the mountains from onlookers, but this day the clouds began to dissipate and Stanley was given a glimpse of a group of snow capped mountains. Stanley had found the Mountains of the Moon. He referred to them, however, by the name that the native Africans knew them by – Ruwenzori or ‘Rainmaker.’ "

I tried to find a picture of the snow-capped peaks from at least a little distance: the one below is OK. Remember it, because in a few years it won't look like this any more.

Ruwenzori snow (the image has a watermark; oh well)

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