Definition
The glaciers of New Zealand are the valley and alpine glaciers of the mountain ranges of the tectonically active Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude island nation of New Zealand.
Overview
There are more than 3,000 glaciers in New Zealand – Aotearoa. Most of the glaciers are clustered in the Southern Alps of the South Island, in the latitudinal range of 42°–46° south, within a 100 km radius of Aoraki Mt Cook (3,754 m asl, Figure 1). In the North Island, there are a handful of rapidly retreating glaciers on the slopes of the active volcano Mt Ruapehu in the central volcanic plateau. A late twentieth century glacier inventory reported that the 3,144 glaciers covered approximately 1,160 km2, with a total ice volume of 53km3 at that time (Chinn, 1989).
The locations of glaciers of New Zealand (from McSaveney, 2009).
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Lawson, W. (2011). New Zealand Glaciers. In: Singh, V.P., Singh, P., Haritashya, U.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Snow, Ice and Glaciers. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_649
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2642-2_649
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