KEY POINTS:
One of New Zealand's outstanding tourist attractions is melting away, glaciologists say.
The tongue of the iconic Franz Josef Glacier on the West Coast will melt away in the next 100 years, a team of glaciologists from Canterbury and Victoria universities have found.
The researchers used a computer model to test the effect of the predictions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the glacier.
"Even with the minimum amount of likely warming over the next century, the glacier will shrink in length by 4km, and reduce in size to three-quarters of its current volume," Brian Anderson from Victoria University said.
While Franz Josef Glacier is currently advancing, that was only because it was unusually responsive to short-term climate cycles such as El Nino, he said.
El Nino causes lower temperatures and greater snowfall in the Southern Alps over three to five-year periods.
Associate Professor Wendy Lawson, head of geography at Canterbury University, said glaciers responded quickly to changes in climate.
"While small glaciers like the Franz Josef contain only a small proportion of the total global ice volume, they are important for sea level change because they respond very quickly to changes in climate," Dr Lawson said.
The results were important for the New Zealand economy, especially for tourism and water resources.
"The Franz Josef Glacier is one of the high points of the visit for tens of thousands of New Zealanders and overseas visitors to the West Coast each year," Dr Lawson said.
Dr Anderson and Andrew Mackintosh, who is also at Victoria University, are expanding the work to look at glacier changes over the entire Southern Alps.
Lonely Planet waxed lyrical about the West Coast glaciers in its latest volume on New Zealand.
"Literally the biggest highlights of the Westland Tai Poutini National Park are the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers.
"Nowhere else at this latitude do glaciers come so close to the coast. These two frozen juggernauts are stereotypical cascades of ice, grinding unceasingly down valleys towards the sea."
Not so unceasingly, it turns out.
- NZPA
