The eruption offers the prospect of enhanced snow next ski season. Photo / Alan Gibson
The eruption offers the prospect of enhanced snow next ski season. Photo / Alan Gibson
KEY POINTS:
The Mt Ruapehu eruption may have put a silver icing on next year's ski season, as more autumn snow than usual is expected for the Whakapapa field.
Massey University glaciologist Dr Martin Brook said a large amount of volcanic material was dumped on the upper snowfields by lastTuesday's eruption.
Dr Brook said the material acted as a source accumulation area to collect snow.
"This, in turn, turns into firm snow and then glacier ice for the Whakapapa glacier in particular."
Dr Brook said snow and glacier ice on Ruapehu usually melted rapidly in spring and summer - where the sun was at a higher angle and the days were longer - until the following autumn.
However, there was now a cover of debris on the ice of varying thickness, up to a couple of metres, which would protect the snow and ice from melting in the accumulation area and keep a base of snow and ice in place for longer than usual.
"That gives us the tantalising prospect of enhanced snow at the beginning of the autumn ski season in 2008."
He said the debris could take a few years to blow away.
However if the debris layer had been thin, under about one centimetre, melting would be enhanced due to absorption of shortwave radiation from the sun.
Climber Off Danger List
The climber whose leg was amputated after being crushed by a falling rock during the Mt Ruapehu eruption has been moved out of intensive care.
William Pike, a 22-year-old Auckland primary school teacher, was inside Dome Hut near Ruapehu's summit last Tuesday night when the rock crashed through the roof and crushed his legs.
He was airlifted off the mountain and eventually taken to Waikato Hospital, where the surgery was performed.
Waikato District Health Board spokeswoman Mary Anne Gill said yesterday Mr Pike had been moved into a ward. "He is talking to his family but is in considerable pain."
