Tasman Glacier and its terminal lake with icebergs and icy debris after massive terminal face calving in 2010 under sunset, Mt. Cook National Park, Mackenzie Country, World Heritage Area, New Zealand

Glaciers around the world are melting and disappearing from World Maps. We are not immune to it as this sad reality is hitting New Zealand as well, and it’s not a nice sight.
The Southern Alps are becoming more and more unstable for alpine activities with increased rock avalanches as the warmer temperatures are melting rock binding ice in lower altitudes then in past.
All this rock avalanche debris falls on the shrinking and narrowing glaciers in valleys below, covering their gasping for breath remnants under layers of rocks.

In case of Tasman Glacier, this is even more evident, as with it’s lengths of 27km now, it is New Zealand’s longest and mightiest glacier…but how long for when its retreat is today estimated to be close to 1 km each year.
In 2010 massive calving event occurred, littering Tasman Glacier terminal lake, non-existent 40 years ago, with tons of ice debris and icebergs.

It’s not every day when event like this happens so I went to check it out myself. When I arrived at the terminal lake near sunset time, the sky suddenly closed up, clouds rolled over my head and it started to snow. The light of the setting sun was penetrating this gentle snowfall, and all Tasman Valley got dressed up in this beautiful pinkish pastel colours…very eerie, moody scene with all the icebergs in the lake…how lucky I was to witness this alone…

Tasman Glacier with its terminal lake after calving at sunset, Mt. Cook National Park, Mackenzie Country, World Heritage Area, New Zealand

Taken with Nikon D300 and Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 lens

Wild Tekano Creek near Douglas Rock Hut in Copland Valley, Westland National Park, West Coast, South Westland, New Zealand

A week ago I spent several days in one of my favourite areas, in Copland Valley, on the West Coast of the South Island in New Zealand.

Gorgeous Copland River runs through this beautiful valley which is penetrated with side creeks of all sizes; and they all have one thing in common – they are rough and wild.
Since these rivers, creeks and streams are in an area where the rainfall can exceed 500mm in 24hrs, one can only imagine the inferno happening when the heavy rain comes down and those massive boulders of bus sizes tumble down these creeks…

But on calm days, these creeks are not only very beautiful alpine gems to photograph but also great to wash down the blood and sweat from reaching them…not mentioning best water to drink!

Tekano Creek with sun rising on The Sierra Range and Welcome Pass behind, Westland National Park, West Coast, World Heritage Area, New Zealand

Taken with Nikon D800E and Nikkor 16-35mm f4 lens and is a stitch of 2 vertical frames.

Thank you and Enjoy!

For more similar images from this area, please visit our online gallery of Rivers and Creeks.

Sunrise over Ice Lake in the Southern Alps with Shackleton and Whataroa Glaciers in the background, alpine herbs in foreground - Westland National Park, West Coast, New Zealand

I’ve been planning this trip for many years but somehow didn’t manage to make it up there until last year…and what a place! I knew that it’s a quite a special location but reality exceeded my expectations.
Alpine garden of herbs and berries with fascinating rocks around a small lake tacked under massive, steep ranges of the Southern Alps with hanging glaciers truly reminds of Peter Jackson’s hobbit film location. It’s not easy to photograph there, however. All area the lake is in is very enclosed and the place doesn’t receive much sunlight, especially when days are shorter and sun lower.

I’m not HDR photographer I have to say, but in this instance I didn’t have many options (D800 wasn’t in my hands at that time). To be frank, I actually haven’t tried an HDR image before, so I was quite keen on trying it here.

For this image I merged 7 exposures to create this 1 frame using Photoshop CS5.

Taken on Nikon D300 with Nikkor 12-24 lens

Photo: ©Petr Hlavacek – www.nzicescapes.com

More images of Ice Lake in New Zealand are available from our gallery Alpine Lake Stock Images from West Coast of New Zealand

Thank you and Enjoy!

Copland River in Copland Valley, West Coast, New Zealand

It was late on a summer day when I took this photograph of the Copland River. As the sun went lower and lower, the Copland Valley lost its light completely and the blue chill of river gave the air its coldness. Combination of these qualities, warm sunlight on the peaks, coldness of the river and with addition of the juicy green rainforest made this frame for me.

This panoramic photograph is a merge of six frames, processed using Lightroom 4 and stitched in Photoshop CS6.

Franz Josef Glacier under the moonlight, Westland National Park, West Coast, New Zealand

Couple of days back it looked like its going to be a good full moon and because I was around, I decided to give it a go and hurried up to climb the hill and spent a night under the stars…and what a night it was!

I’ve been just starting and experimenting with night photography so I was very excited to see what can be captured. I managed to get several exposures ranging from 30 to 40 min but I can see that there is much more potential. It was full moon and that’s why I went up – to get well illuminated glacier but next time I might go somewhere in the middle of the moon cycle. That should allow me to add some nice, stronger star trails into the frame, as well, as this time the sky was too bright.

Since this image is not online yet, the link from it will take you to our STOCK galleries where you can explore more on New Zealand’s landscapes!
Enjoy!

Fox Glacier under highest peaks in New Zealand - Mt. Tasman 3,497m and Mt Cook 3,754m

When do we call a chunk of ice a glacier? Usually, the ice mass has to be at least 100m x 100m in size and needs to show some signs of a present or past movement.
Generally, glaciers are divided into two main groups – Ice Sheets and Valley Glaciers, each with several sub-types.
Ice Sheets or Continental Glaciers are the largest masses of ice on Earth spreading over 50,000 square kilometres with the depth of ice sometimes more than 4,200m. They are only found in Antarctica and Greenland. Ice Shelves are floating extensions of Ice Sheets and surround most of Antarctica. Ice masses smaller than 50,000km2, with a dome-shaped accumulation of ice and snow completely covering mountainous areas, are called Ice Caps and are found in high elevations of polar and sub-polar regions. Similar but smaller than Ice Caps are Ice Fields which can cover low-relief mountain plateaus providing a source of ice for Mountain or Valley Glaciers. Relatively smaller than its originating ice source are Outlet Glaciers, these are rapidly moving frozen streams flowing out of larger bodies of ice.

Beautiful pastel colours of the sunset above Franz Josef Glacier photographed from Centennial Hut toward the Tasman Sea visible on a horizon. Tusk Rocks in a foreground, Chamberlin Snowfield right, Agassiz Glacier left - Westland National Park, West Coast, New Zealand

The most destructive and powerful hand of Mother Nature lies, arguably, in the cryosphere. We may not see it doing much immediate damage, but by observing the landscape we can see enormous changes in our environment caused by glaciers. One of the very typical and most visible footprints glaciers leave behind are our, often ice free, valleys. Entire mountainsides were remodeled by

glacial action leaving only steep valley walls behind. In the upper reaches of the Franz Josef Glacier there is massive pressure from the build up of up to 300m of ice and snow. Associated erosional forces combine to create a bowl shaped depression in the underlying rock called a Cirque, with the snow and ice field contained in the cirque being called the Neve. As gravity encourages ice down the valley the weight of the ice presses downwards and outwards scouring the valleys into a distinctive glaciated U-shape. These are much broader and flatter floored than the V-shaped valleys carved by rivers.

A terminal moraine (foreground) left by retreating Franz Josef Glacier around 14.000 years ago.

If the current average temperature were just 4° C lower, we would be living in an ice age. During the last, 18, 000 years ago, Franz Josef Glacier stretched its tongue some 10km beyond the present coast line. In this period the sea level was around 100m lower than today, as an immense amount of water was locked up in the glaciers all around the world. On the West Coast there were not many visible mountain valleys as the majority were filled with ice. The western side of the Alps was literally one massive white sheet of ice with rock ridges sticking out, and stretched from the alpine tops all the way to the sea. The life of the glacier is represented by its repeating advance and retreat leaving traces in forms of terminal and lateral moraines. These moraines are particularly visible from the air and some of them can even be observed from the ground.

As with all the rest of the glaciated world, New Zealand is also losing ice mass at a rapid rate, with 61% lost since 1850 (Hoelzle et al. 2007), and 11% in the last 30 years (T. Chinn, pers. comm.).

Most of this loss is from the large glaciers calving into pro-glacial lakes, such as the Tasman Glacier. This lake formation is the result of glacier thinning in response to climatic warming in the 20^th century. As well as these large dynamic changes in glacier volume, there are smaller annual changes in volume due to changes in the amount of snow accumulation and snow and ice melt. An idea of how much mass is lost or gained each year throughout the Southern Alps is given by measurements of the end-of-summer snowlines since 1977. These measurement indicate that there have been positive mass balances at times during this period balance (Chinn et al. 2008) and the very sensitive and responsive Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers have advanced as a result.

The advance of Ka Roimata o Hine Hukatere Franz Josef Glacier since 1984 has been extraordinary given the global pattern of receeding glaciers during this period. Recent work has confirmed the very sensitive nature of this glacier – that is it advances or retreats a large amount for a small change in climate (Anderson et al. 2006; Anderson et al. 2008). Combined with its very short response time this explains the large variations in glacier length observed in the last decade.

All of the indications are that Franz Josef Glacier has lost mass in recent years, particularly in 2008, and 2010. We do not have enough measurements to calculate an annual mass balance, but the combination of thinning in the accumulation area and lower amounts of net accumulation observed indicate a negative mass balance. This makes it likely that the recently-started retreat will continue.

This is an excerpt from a full report researched and written by one of the leading New Zealand glaciologists Brian Anderson/Victoria University Wellington.

Text ©Brian Anderson

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