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Source: ONE News -
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There is more grim news for South Island glaciers as scientists take to the skies to gauge their health.
Glaciers give a good reading of regional climate change and early indications are that they are still shrinking after another warm year.
Glaciologist Trevor Chinn says the glaciers "know exactly what the climate's doing".
"Where a thermometer shifts one-tenth of a millimetre, a glacier shifts tens of metres and you can see the change," he says.
Chinn discovered, by accident, that a simple snapshot of the snowline at the end of summer, before any new winter snow, can provide a weather picture for the whole year.
"If the snowline's above [a certain] height, then we're getting warmer and if it's below that height, we're getting cooler."
NIWA scientists cover 50 glaciers at 10,000 feet. Using GPS they take photographs from the same position to compare with 30 years of data.
"They've been sort of sitting more or less the same and now you can see there's bare ice sitting everywhere with hardly any new snow," Chinn says.
"So the prognosis is the glaciers are starting to look a little bit sick."
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