Ohio State University glaciologist Lonnie Thompson has made 27 trips to the Qori Kalis Glacier on the Quelccaya Ice Cap high in the Peruvian Andes Mountains. Each year, he sees the massive tongue of ice has retreated more and more, the victim of climate warming in the area. The 200-foot-deep lake at the margin of the glacier only formed in 1991, a reminder of how much ice has been lost from this remote site.
The images on the left show two remaining remnants of portions of the ice fields topping Tanzania's Mount Kilimanjaro. Thompson first visited the "snows of Kilimanjaro" less than a decade ago and, in 2002, predicted that they would be lost within 15 years. While some ice fields still remain there, they continue to shrink each year, reminding people living at the base of this giant mountain that their historic source of fresh water may one day be gone.