DAR ES SALAAM, Aug.14 (Xinhua) -- An English university study has suggested that the snow cap on Mount Kilimanjaro may not disappear by 2020 or 2030 as had been claimed previously.

    The African newspaper on Thursday quoted the field study done by the Portsmouth University on the mountain top as saying that the rate at which the snow cap is melting does not suggest that the snow cap will disappear in the near future.

    The 11-day study on Mount Kilimanjaro was led by climatologist Nick Pepin who said that his team had found that the temperature on top of the mountain was considerably below zero degree centigrade, according to the newspaper.

    He suggested that a long-term research is needed to answer the question whether the erosion of the snow cap is caused by the melting of the mountain glacier or by sublimation.

    The climatologist said that the snow on top of Africa's highest mountain peak is bound to change due to climatic changes but the snow cap is still big enough to sustain the current erosion at the present rate.

    Estimates made through analyzing pictures taken in 1912 and 2001 have claimed that Mount Kilimanjaro has lost 82 percent of its snow cap which is factually an ice cover.

    The 2001 study shocked the public with the warning that the snow cap on Mount Kilimanjaro would disappear between 2015 and 2020.

    The warning was issued by Lonnie Thompson, a professor with the Ohio State University of the United States, who made an aerial survey of the famous mountain peak back then.

    He claimed that comparisons with previous mappings showed that33 percent of Mt Kilimanjaro's ice had disappeared in the last two decades and 82 percent had gone since 1912.

    Lonnie Thompson has spent two decades studying the tropical ice fields on the mountains of South America, Africa and Asia.