Snow Patches at Kosi

I received this message from Prof. Ken Green on the 19th April & thought you may find it interesting.

Dr Ken Green is an Alpine Ecologist & truly knows the Main Range better than anyone having spent more nights in a tent on the range than at home for many years. Ken's knowledge & contributions to the alpine environment are giant! He has a Bachelor of Applied Science, a Phd in Zoology & produced over 150 peer-reviewed papers in not only Zoology but Botany, Glaciology, Soils & Geology, Hydrology, Lake Chemistry, Archaeology & Climate Change. Among many other points of note Ken has made seven trips to Antarctica & he was the Australasian and Zoologist representative on the “Global Mountain and Biodiversity Assessment” for 10 years.

I've just finished going around the snow patches at Kossy, yesterday and today. I have included a map of the sites with numbers and also names of sites below. For those looking at satellite photos an IBT person is an advantage (IBT=I've Been There). Number 24 for example was covered in fresh snow and there were a number of similar sized fresh snowpatches nearby but a human can identify an old snowpatch covered in fresh snow. By the way number 24 was 15 X 21m in size and No2 was 9 X 5m and the Temperature logger which two weeks ago was 2 m from the snowpatch was today 4 m away.

The sites with last year's snow in them are 1, 2, 8, 9.17, 22, 23 and 24. 1, 9 and 22 look like the next to disappear if the sites are not protected by new snow. The one most likely to survive is No 1. This one is big. I'll measure it on the 29th and possibly weigh it with the ice corer. It is currently a few metres thick (see attached).

I hope that is of interest. Locations below.

Snow patch sites monitored in most months from 1997 to 2023 – 1 Mt. Twynam, 2 Blue Lake Cliff upper, 3 Hedley Tarn, 4 Blue Lake Cliff at lake level, 5 Blue Lake North, 6 Blue Lake South, 7 End of Twynam track, 8 Roger Good’s creek, 9 Soil Con Hut creek, 10 Carruthers, 11 Club Lake, 12 Mawson Cirque (1997), 13 Mawson Cirque 2, 14 and 15 Mt. Clarke Cirque, 16 Mt. Clarke South West (3 snowpatches), 17 Mt. Townsend, 18 Muellers Gap, 19 Mt. Kosciuszko North-East Ridge, 20 + 21 Mt. Kosciuszko, 22 Lake Cootapatamba, 23 Etheridge Ridge, 24 Snowy River, 25 Twin Valleys, 26 Mt. Stillwell (2 snowpatches).

cheers Ken

Thanks Ken!