The famous "Snows of Kilimanjaro" which cap Africa's highest mountain are melting so fast they could be gone within two decades, according to experts, foreign media say.

Scientists believe global warming rather than local weather changes is chiefly to blame for the rapid loss of ice from the Tanzanian peak.

A study comparing new measurements with those taken in 2000 show that a layer of Kilimanjaro ice between six and 17 feet thick has vanished since then.

Not only are the mountain's glaciers retreating at an unprecedented rate, but the remaining ice is thinning.

The researchers predict that if current conditions persist, the mountain could be ice-free as early as 2022.

he "Snows of Kilimanjaro" will then exist only as a memory - and the title of a short story by Ernest Hemingway.

Scientists made their forecast after combining data from aerial photographs and ground measurements of ice thickness.

They found that the total area of Kilimanjaro's ice fields had shrunk by nearly 85% between 1912 and 2007. More than a quarter of the ice present in 2000 has now gone.

The team, led by Professor Lonnie Thompson, from Ohio State University in the US, pointed out that the snows had survived intact for 11,700 years.