Global Warming

New Zealand losing glaciers due to global warming

New Zealand, a country famous for its tourist attractions and magnificent sceneries, is losing its glaciers due to global warming, a study indicates. Fox and Franz Josef, two stunning glaciers that run from the mountains to a temperate rain forest, are at risk. The ice is melting so fast that it has become too dangerous for tourists to hike onto the glaciers, bringing an end to a tradition dating back to a century. The warm temperatures due to global warming are responsible for the glaciers melting, according to researchers.

Scientists feel that the melting of Fox and Franz Josef is one of the examples how global warming is adversely affecting the environment. Helicopters are now the only means of getting to the glaciers, which till last year could be climbed

A paper published in 2014 in the Global and Planetary Change said that each of the two glaciers had melted by up to 3 kilometres in length since the 1800s, reducing them in height by about 20 percent. The authors also said that due to global warming, the ice has been melting at a rate never recorded before.