WASHINGTON?The snows of Kilimanjaro soon may be gone.

The African mountain?s white peak, made famous by American writer Ernest Hemingway, is melting rapidly, researchers report.

Its snows could vanish altogether in 20 years, most likely due to global warming, a US study said.

Some 85 percent of the ice that comprised the mountaintop glaciers in 1912 was gone by 2007, researchers led by paleoclimatologist Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University report in Tuesday?s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And more than a quarter of the ice present in 2000 was gone by 2007.

If current conditions continue ?the ice fields atop Kilimanjaro will not endure,? the researchers said.

Rising temperatures

The ice sheet that capped Kilimanjaro in 1912 was 85 percent smaller by 2007, and since 2000 the existing ice sheet has shrunk by 26 percent, the paleoclimatologists said.

The findings point to the rise in global temperatures as the most likely cause of the ice loss. Changes in cloudiness and precipitation may have also played a smaller, less important role, especially in recent decades, they added.

Similar changes are being reported at Mount Kenya and the Rwenzori Mountains in Africa and at glaciers in South America and the Himalayas in Asia.

?The fact that so many glaciers throughout the tropics and subtropics are showing similar responses suggests an underlying common cause,? Thompson said in a statement.

?The increase of Earth?s near surface temperatures, coupled with even greater increases in the mid- to upper-tropical troposphere, as documented in recent decades, would at least partially explain? the observations, he said.

Changes in cloudiness and snowfall also may be involved, although they appear less important, according to the study.

On Kilimanjaro, the researchers said, the northern ice field thinned by 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) and the southern ice field by 16.7 feet (5.1 meters) between 2000 and 2007.

To compare the area covered by the glaciers, the researchers compared the current area with maps of the glaciers based on photographs taken in 1912 and 1953 and satellite images from 1976 and 1989.

Powerful symbol

The research was financed by the US National Science Foundation and US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Kilimanjaro, Africa?s tallest peak, is a powerful symbol in Hemingway?s short story titled ?The Snows of Kilimanjaro.? The story, about a dying writer, is filled with images of death.