Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland

Image from The Telegraph

According to Nick Squires, for centuries, the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Swiss villages Fieschertal and Fiesch prayed for a halt in the advance of Europe's longest glacier.

In 2009, however, they requested an audience with the Pope, hoping for permission to pray for the opposite outcome. It now appears that the glacier is receding about 100 m per year.

Mont Blanc

Image from france-voyage

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,...
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
... like vapour broods over the snow.
The secret strength of things which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

Thus wrote English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in his 1817 mountain ode.

At 4807 metres high, this famous peak of the French Alps is the highest in western Europe. Located on the Swiss border, this enormous mountain is the home of many glaciers. Ice streams fall from the frozen dome of the "White Mountain." In the early 17th century, the glaciers advanced into the valley of Chamonix, burying homes and cultivation.

When Shelley wrote his poem. Mont Blanc was a remote and exclusive destination, with limited road access. Today it is a busy Alpine tourist resort.

Glaciers of the Pyrenees about to disappear

Image from Juan Jose Gonzalez Trueba, in Science Daily

Back in 2008, Science Daily reported a study that predicted that Europe's southernmost glaciers, located in the Pyrenees between France and Spain, would be gone within fifty years.

Atlas Mountains are snowcapped but not glacial

Image by Stuart Black

Though the snow capped Atlas Mountains of northern Africa are far from the equator, they have no glaciers.

Here these lovely peaks are seen in Morocco, near Marrakech.

Lewis Glacier on Mount Kenya

Image from caingram.info

Lewis Glacier is the largest of twelve that are located on Mount Kenya in the country of the same name. All are receding.

This imposing mountain, an extinct volcano, has been considered sacred by the people who live near it. Second Kenyan mountain in height to Mt. Kilimanjaro, it straddles the equator and is a UNESCO Heritage Site.

Below: Lewis Glacier people.whitman.edu 

Mount Stanley

Image from The Independent

Located in the Rwenzori moutain chain, Mount Stanley is the third highest in Africa. This icy peak straddles the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Below, climbers take in the stupendous view after ascending the glaciers on Alexandra Peak.

Image from allposterimages

The glaciers on the peaks of Rwenzori National Park, known as the Mountains of the Moon, are melting.

National Geographic has published omparative pictures from 1952 and 2008 show how dramatic the reduction is. Some glaciers have vanished altogether.

Glaciers of Kilimanjaro

Glacier on Kilimanjaro from amusingplanet.

In the past century, the snows atop Mount Kilimanjaro, on the Kenya-Tanzania border, have receded dramatically. Africa's tallest mountain is a stratovolcano, and Kibo, its highest peak, is dormant but not extinct. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, glaciers reached the treeline.

The black volcanic rock absorbs heat, causing Kili's glaciers to melt and refreeze, and creating overhangs and other dramatic ice formations. 

Right: Furtwangler glacier 

from Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro