“That’s emaciated.”Īs the plane comes in to land at Lake Tekapo’s airfield, Lorrey points out the folds and drainage channels in the plains. Anytime you see blue ice, it’s naked,” he says. … So that whole glacier, pretty much 80%, 90% of it is melting. “You see that ice here? All the bluish ice is completely bare, it’s been stripped off. As the plane circles the rear of Mount Bryant, Lorrey points to where the snow has pulled back from the ice. “This is a glacier that’s melting all over – at the top and the bottom and the sides, just bringing the whole thing in,” Mackintosh says.Īs the seasonal climate has warmed through spring and through summer, that snowline peels up. But the extent of warming temperatures are changing that dynamic even at high altitudes, sending the ice on glaciers like Brewster contracting even at the higher reaches. Typically, a glacier will accumulate snow at its top and slowly melt from its lower reaches, forming alpine lakes and tarns, and feeding the braided rivers below. That snow feeds and protects the glacier, adding to the ice’s volume before the warmer months can strip it away. Over winter, the snow should coat the glaciers and slopes with a thick, smooth slab of marzipan. “The scale of retreat is confronting, even to a glaciologist.” “There’s a kind of conflict: of fascination in how the system can change so rapidly, combined with the emotional response of seeing the loss of ice that’s such an important part of the landscape, and so beautiful and so culturally important.”īrewster Glacier has shrunk over two decades so that it no longer has the ‘characteristics of a happy, living glacier any more’. “It’s interesting as a scientist, and a bit challenging as a human being to see that change,” Mackintosh says. Mackintosh and Lorrey occasionally lean over their grey vinyl seats to exchange observations, gazing out the shuddering windows. Some of the glaciers they used to record have vanished over the last decade. They know each by name, and have their personal favourites. Some of these scientists have been monitoring these glaciers for decades, returning every year to take their pictures. There is a grief in watching the ice melt. It looks like something that is just decaying, and won’t be with us much longer.” A confronting sight
“It will take a while to fully waste away, but it doesn’t have the characteristics of a happy, living glacier any more. “It’s 20 years later, and I just wonder how … ” he trails off. Mackintosh, a glaciologist now based at Monash University in Australia, helped launch the monitoring programme at Brewster glacier in New Zealand in 2004. Scientists say it ‘won’t be with us much longer’. “I wouldn’t have imagined to have seen changes like that in my lifetime – it’s quite profound.”īrewster glacier, New Zealand. “It’s really dramatic,” says prof Andrew Mackintosh, the lead scientist on the exhibition, turning back over his headrest to yell over the roar of the engine. The thick snow and ice that might once have covered it has retreated, replaced with the dark sheen of newly exposed rock. Brewster’s layers of ice look like a slice of quartz, rippled with thin ribs of black scree and apricot sediment. Across others, however, veins of dark rock are emerging, eating deeper and deeper into the glaciers’ pale centres.
Franz josef glacier cracked#
The larger glaciers, like Fox and Franz Josef, are shrunken but still confront you as huge rivers of ice, wrinkled and cracked by the pressure of their downhill flow, a thick ribbon of crumpled pale blue crepe. Out the far window, the blue-grey expanse of Brewster glacier looms to the right. And it's too much to expect the local restaurants to advise their customers not to drive after a glass of wine.As the tiny plane curls around the peaks, the pilot flicks between different maps on a tablet, comparing notes with the science team through a headset to try to track the precise location of glaciers through the cloud cover. The officer was polite, but this routine behavior must be a real money maker for the government here, particularly since it is in a very touristy area and there must be good pickings in the evenings for tourists leaving the downtown area after a nice meal and glass of wine. This particular officer admitted that he had pulled over 10-12 cars this evening, apparently randomly checking with his test kit.
One of us received a DUI citation after dinner, without any erratic or unlawful driving, and after only one small glass of wine in a local restaurant. And the standard for DUI is apparently much lower here than in the USA. Beware the DUI cop here! DO NOT DRIVE after even one glass of wine in a local restaurant! We were unaware that in New Zealand the police can just pull you over without any cause whatsoever and give you a breathalyzer test.
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