Twenty-First Century Calving Retreat of Tasman Glacier, Southern Alps, New Zealand

Figures & data

FIGURE 1 Location of Tasman Glacier in the Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park, and location of other ice-contact lakes and glaciers mentioned in the text. The base map is an ASTER image acquired on 9 February 2006. Box around Tasman Lake represents the area shown in Figures 2 and 3A.

FIGURE 2 Bathymetric map of Tasman Lake from the April 2008 echo-sounding survey. The location of the terminus in 2000 and 2006 is shown along with two sub-bottom sonar profiles (Fig. 6). The subdivision between the eastern embayment ice cliff (EEIC) and the main ice cliff (MIC), north and south of the dotted line, is also shown.

FIGURE 3 (A) Growth of Tasman Lake and supraglacial ponds between April 2000 and May 2008. (B) Graph of Tasman Glacier retreat showing the mean (bars), MIC (asterisks), and EEIC (triangles) retreat rates. (C) Surface area (squares) and water volume (circles) of meltwater ponds (pre-1980s) and Tasman Lake between 1957 and 2008. Solid points are from this study, surface area and lake volume pre-2000 from Kirkbride (1989), Hochstein et al. (1995), and Watson (1995).

TABLE 1 Tasman Glacier retreat data, 2000–2008.

FIGURE 4 Oblique aerial photographs showing the disintegration of the lower Tasman Glacier terminus between (A) March 2006, (B) 2007, and (C) 2008 (photos: S. Winkler).

FIGURE 5 Sub-bottom profiles running perpendicular (A) and parallel (B) to the 2008 main ice cliff. In (A) the ice ramp (black dotted line) joins the bed of the lake (white dotted line), whereas in (B) the ice ramp is overlying the moraine wall (black dotted line) at the northeastern margin of the lake. See Figure 2 for profile locations.

FIGURE 6 Monthly rainfall at Mount Cook Village (bars) and full width retreat rate of Tasman Glacier (circles) for the period 2000–2008. Dotted line indicates mean precipitation between 2000 and 2008. Date from NIWA (2008).

Kirkbride, M. P. 1989. The influence of sediment budget, a geomorphic activity of the Tasman Glacier, Mount Cook National Park, New Zealand. PhD thesis. University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.

 Google Scholar

Hochstein, M. P. , D. Claridge , S. A. Henrys , A. Pyne , D. C. Nobes , and S. F. Leary . 1995. Downwasting of the Tasman Glacier, South Island, New Zealand: changes in the terminus region between 1971 and 1993. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 38:1–16.

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Watson, M. I. 1995. Geophysical and glaciological studies of the Tasman and Mueller Glaciers. MSc thesis. University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.

 Google Scholar

NIWA 2008. Climate summaries. Auckland, New Zealand National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd.

 Google Scholar