The Northern Ice Field is near the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, on the west slope of the peak.

[3] During the exceptionally cold period known as the Younger Dryas, which occurred approximately 12,800 and 11,500 years BP (between 10,800 and 9500 BC), Mount Kilimanjaro may have been ice-free.

While conditions during the Younger Dryas were cold enough to support ice, it was also exceptionally dry, so much so that the region where Mount Kilimanjaro is located was semi-desert.

[4] The current state of retreat of the glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro has been attributed to both warmer and drier conditions than were present during the Little Ice Age.

Since 1984, the Northern Ice Field developed a hole near its center point which by 2003 had opened into a canyon exposing rocks for the first time in 11,000 years.