K KAME AND KETTLE TOPOGRAPHY the form of low alluvial fans (if deposited on land) or deltas (if deposited in standing water).The glaciofluvial landform include kame, kame terrace, kettle, kettle holes, Amit Kumar outwash plains, etc. Department of Geology, Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India Bibliography Benn, D. I., and Evans, D. J. A., 1998. Glaciers and Glaciation. Definition London: Arnold. A kame is a stratified geomorphologic feature which is Hambrey, M., and Alean, J., 2004. Glaciers, 2nd edn. Cambridge: created by deposition action of glacier meltwater, an irreg- Cambridge University Press. ularly shaped hill or mound composed of sand, gravel, and till, commonly associated with end moraine. A kame may Cross-references occur as an isolated hill but in general each kame is one Glaciofluvial mound in a low-lying terrain of many hummocks, terraces, Glaciogenic Deposits ridges, and hollows. Kames are often associated with ket- tle holes. Kettles are depressions in the outwash plains, which formed due to the melting of large ice blocks and this is referred to as kame and kettle topography. Kame KATABATIC WIND: IN RELATION WITH SNOW and kettle topography is an indicator of a high-discharge AND GLACIERS supraglacial and englacial drainage system of a glacier in the final stages of melt, and large quantities of glacially Amit Kumar derived debris associated with meltwater. Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Department of Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India Origin Glacier meltwater that exists in the ablation area of gla- Synonyms ciers during the melting season flows down on the glacier Drainage wind; Fall winds; Piteraq and williwaw surface, in the ice, or on the bedrock, making complex sys- tems of drainage channels. Deformation of ice, movement Definition of glacier, freezing, and melting processes influence on the Katabatic wind (Greek: katabaino – to go down) is the position and form of channels. Meltwater escapes through common name for downslope winds flowing from high numerous small and temporary streams. These streams elevations of mountains, plateaus, and glacier down their carry sediments for longer distances and deposit them in slopes to the valleys or planes underneath. Such winds various forms. Sometimes, these streams also carry some are sometimes also called fall winds. Particularly, it is ice. Thus, the deposition of sediments after the ablation a wind that carries high density air from a higher elevation (melting of glacier) is called glaciofluvial deposits and down a slope under the force of gravity. This occurs on the the landforms resulting from such deposits are called largest scale as the outflowing winds from Greenland and glaciofluvial landforms. The sediments are deposited in Antarctica. In Greenland these winds are called Piteraq Vijay P. Singh, Pratap Singh & Umesh K. Haritashya (eds.), Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2, # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011 672 KILIMANJARO and in South America as well as in Alaska, it is wind Geographic setting known as a Williwaw. Kilimanjaro is a massive, dormant volcano in Tanzania, Alpine valleys produce their own local wind systems as built up of both lava flows and pyroclastic material, situ- a result of thermal differences. The cold air slides down the ated roughly equidistant (300 km) south of the Equator slope under gravity during night. The radiative cooling of and west of the Indian Ocean. Three primary volcanic the ground surface under clear and calm conditions during centers are thought to have been active sequentially since night provides colder air near the surface. The nighttime the Pleistocene, which together form the Kilimanjaro downslope movement of the colder air is referred to as massif: Shira (4,005 m), Mawenzi (5,140 m), and Kibo katabatic winds. The anabatic wind is developed prior to (5,895 m). At the apex of Kibo is a relatively flat caldera the daytime, whereas katabatic drainage is developed in measuring 1.9 by 2.7 km (Figure 1); Uhuru Peak is the the night. The katabatic winds usually flow gently down- highest point along the southern scarp, 180 m above slope with low speed, but greater speeds are also experi- the caldera floor. enced when the depth of cold air is large and the slope is higher. History of cryospheric research on Kilimanjaro Bibliography The earliest scientific discussion of snow and ice on Kili- “ ” Benn, D. I., and Evans, D. J. A., 1998. Glaciers and Glaciation. manjaro began with the initial European discovery of London: Arnold. the snowcap by Johannes Rebmann in 1848. English Bennett, M. R., and Glasser, N. F., 1996. Glacial Geology: Ice Geographers were incredulous, and dismissed Rebmann’s Sheets and Landforms. Chichester: Wiley. report for more than a decade (Meyer, 1891). Hans Meyer Colbeck, S., 1980. Dynamics of Snow and Ice Masses. London: climbed nearly to the crater rim in 1887, reaching the sum- Academic. mit 2 years later on 6 October 1889 (Meyer, 1891). Addi- Defant, F., 1949. Zur Theorie der Hangwinde, nebst Bemerkungen zur Theorie der Berg- und Talwinde. (On the theory of slope tional European scientists soon reached the summit area winds, along with remarks on the theory of mountain and valley and published their qualitative findings. Logistical con- winds.). Archiv für Meteorologie Geophysik und straints rendered ascents and fieldwork considerably more Bioklimatologie, A1, 421–450. difficult than at present, yet virtually every account Singh, P., and Singh, V. P., 2001. Snow and Glacier Hydrology. describes features and processes not unlike those of today. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Most also discuss the decreasing extent of ice, and many predict disappearance – within decades – of either indi- vidual glaciers or all of the mountain’s ice. KILIMANJARO Mid-twentieth-century perspectives on Kibo’s summit and slope glaciers were provided by Humphries (1959), Douglas R. Hardy Downie and Wilkinson (1972), and Hastenrath (1984). Climate System Research Center and Department Henry Osmaston (1989) then published an analysis of gla- of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Morrill cier Moraine (qv) as mapped from aerial photographs, Science Center, Amherst, MA, USA which for the first time quantified the nineteenth century extent of glaciers on the mountain. Hastenrath and Greischar (1997) built upon Osmaston’s work and pro- Definition vided the first cartographic documentation of ice reces- Kilimanjaro is Africa’s highest mountain (5,895 m), sion. Thereafter, a resurgence of research on Kibo began located in northern Tanzania just south of the Kenya bor- 0 0 in February 2000 with Ice Core (qv) drilling, aerial pho- der (3 4 S; 37 21 E). At the seasonally snow-covered tography, and installation of an automated weather station 2 summit, the extent of glacier ice is now less than 2 km , (AWS) on the Northern Icefield (Hardy, 2002; Thompson roughly half of that remaining on the continent. et al., 2002). A Network of Stakes (qv) has expanded steadily since 2000 to represent most of the glacierized Overview area at the summit, and two additional AWS are now oper- The cryosphere is sparsely represented in Africa, primar- ating on summit glaciers (Mölg et al., 2008). ily on a small handful of the continent’s highest moun- Today, as during the nineteenth century, snow and ice tains. Among these is Kilimanjaro, the “white roof of on Kilimanjaro are again controversial. A new ice-extent Africa,” whose glaciers have achieved notoriety far out map released in 2001 was accompanied by a prediction of proportion to their size (miniscule), importance as that the glaciers could disappear within 20 years (Irion, a water resource (negligible), or potential contribution to 2001). Kilimanjaro was quickly employed to symbolize sea-level rise (zero). Yet, Kilimanjaro’s summit mantle the impacts of global warming (e.g., Greenpeace, 2001). of Snow (qv) and Ice (qv) is starkly beautiful, and thus However, cautious statements by scientists such as Kaser among the mountain’s most fascinating, distinctive, and et al. (2004, p. 337) that “...mass loss on the summit ... best-known attributes. Thousands of international visitors is little affected by air temperature,” or Mote and Kaser are attracted annually, bringing valuable tourism revenue (2007,p.325)that“... loss of ice on Mount Kilimanjaro to Tanzania. cannot be used as proof of global warming,” were eagerly KILIMANJARO 673 Kilimanjaro, Figure 1 Kibo peak of Kilimanjaro, with remnants of the ice cap (qv) that once encircled the summit. The crater is the area surrounded by ice and labeled “KIBO.” Contours are in meters. Solid circle symbols indicate location of 2000 ice-core drilling sites (Thompson et al., 2002), and the ice extent is shown for five epochs (1912–1989 after Hastenrath and Greischar (1997), 2000 after Thompsen et al. (2002)). NIF, EIF, and SIF are the former Northern, Eastern, and Southern Ice Fields (respectively), FWG Furtwa¨ngler Glacier, UP Uhuru Peak (5,895 m), and LPG Little Penck Glacier. Automated weather stations currently operate near the NIF and SIF drill sites. embraced by those seeking to cast doubts about global (Coutts, 1969; Hemp, 2006). This precipitation pattern warming (e.g., GES, 2004). Resolution of the modern-time accounts in part for the asymmetrical distribution of gla- controversy awaits a comprehensive understanding of how ciers on Kilimanjaro. Kilimanjaro’s summit climate has been impacted by large- Precipitation at the summit annually totals only 10% scale atmospheric circulation changes; this effort is well of that received by the forest below, and snow is the pre- underway (Mölg et al., 2009;Thompsonetal.,2009; dominant form of precipitation at elevations above the Winkler et al., 2010). mean annual freezing-level altitude, roughly 4,700 m (Hastenrath, 1984). Snowfall can occur at any time of year, but is primarily associated with northern Tanzania’s Climate two seasonally-wet periods, the November–December Kilimanjaro rises 5,000 m above the surrounding plains, “short rains,” and the “long rains” of March to May.