Snow and ice is a resource that is intricately woven into our society, through recreation, tourism, hydroelectricity, irrigation, hazards, and importantly climate. Our research explores how snow and ice changes over time and space, studying glacier mass balance and dynamics, seasonal snow, sea ice, and ice shelf processes.
We have ongoing research at Fox Glacier, Tasman Glacier and Rolleston Glacier.
Technical and specialised equipment
We have a wide range of equipment to support snow and ice research including:
- Heucke Stream Drill
- Kovacs Ice Auger
- Snow metrics aluminium snow probe
- Snow density kits
- Avalanche transceivers
- Avalanche probes
- Ice axes
- Crampons
Other technical equipment with snow and ice application includes:
- High-precision survey equipment – RTK GNSS
- Ground Penetrating Radar with options for 25, 300-500, 500 and 1000 MHz antennas
- Bathyswath – underwater swath survey capable of being using in water depths ranging from 40 cm to 300 m (117 kHz)
Equipment available in collaboration with Gateway Antarctica:
- Toikka Snowfork
- Kovacs Snow and Ice Corer
- Frequency modulated continuous wave radar (phase-sensitive radar - pRES)
