In L imaginary of people, Hawaii goes hand in hand with sun, waves and surfers. However, Mauna Kea, where the famous observatory D Hawaii with telescopes Keck, Subaru and CFHT is, is well-known to be periodically covered with snow, D elsewhere Mauna Kea means the “white mountain” in Hawaiian.

Much more, at the beginning of the 21st century, the geologists surveying this one had observed moraines, an indisputable proof of the presence of glaciers on this island of the Pacific to the rather tropical climate. As for Kilimanjaro, part of L explanation comes from L altitude from this volcanic building which culminates with 4.200 meters. But, Justus with the recent dating

Thanks to these new data, one thinks now that the cap of ice recovering Mauna Kea probably reached its maximum D extension between 19.000 and 16.000 years and qu it persisted in L state until the end. D after certain measurements, the ices could even locally go down in lower part from L altitude 3.200 m and the temperatures were in lower part of zero at the top almost any L year, when well even the temperature of L ocean, it, reached 25 °C in summer.

Chart of the principal island of Hawaii where Mauna Kea (Credit is: USGS).

A so long persistence D a glacier whereas the temperature increased everywhere else since thousands D years seems to constitute an anomaly. But one starts to include/understand qu because of the local modes of rainfall, as well as certain airstreams, the quantity of snow being able to fall as well as the temperature of L atmosphere can have space variations marked in high-altitude. One knows for example maintaining areas close in the Andes where glaciers started to be withdrawn 34.000 years ago, whereas in their vicinity, D others remained stable Justus 15.000 years ago.

There are thus great variability's in time according to the geographical areas for the glaciers in altitude.

For the researchers, the results relating to Hawaii are important to improve the forecast of L evolution of the climate of our planet in the future. In particular, that seems to indicate that weak temperature variations with the sea level are amplified in altitude. As Pierre Henri Blared underlines it, L one of the five researchers having published L article of Nature on the glaciers D Hawaii, “imagine how much the consequences of this mechanism can be worrying for tens of million people whose water provision depends on the perennially of the glaciers of mountain (the Andes, the Himalayas). ”