Tasman glacier shrinking fast: Reports

A glacier scientist says New Zealand’s biggest glacier is melting faster than at any time in recent history and could be reduced to a few miles of ice within 20 years.

Glaciologist Dr Martin Brook says Tasman Glacier on South Island was 18 miles long in 1990, with virtually no lake at its front edge.

New measurements show a lake forming as the glacier melts is now 4.4 miles long, 1.2 miles wide and 800 feet deep.

He said today the lake water at the ice face is eating away the glacier.