CNN.com reports about what Hemingway immortalized as The Snows of Kilimanjaro. The glaciers atop mount Kilimanjaro have been shrinking for over a century.

But unlike glaciers being lost elsewhere warming air is almost certainly not to blame for Kilimanjaro’s problems. Scientists have found the temperature of the air around Kilimanjaro’s glaciers is rarely above freezing.

The energy to melt Kilimanjaro’s glacier’s is coming from solar radiation. While changes in weather patterns linked to the Indian Ocean could also be a factor.

The process may well have been going on since before the first explorers reached the mountain’s summit. As the vertical shape of the edge of the ice means that while it can shrink it cannot expand.