Trevor Chinn (glaciologist)

Following a training period with the Ministry of Works, Chinn was invited to apply for a field role carrying out snow surveys on the Tasman Glacier and in the wider Mackenzie Basin.

A major source of stored water for power generation existed in the form of the Tasman Glacier, New Zealand's longest body of ice (28 kilometres (17 mi) as of 2018).

From 1965 to 1970 Chinn, along with several others carried out a series of mass balance estimates of the Tasman Glacier, using traditional snow accumulation and ablation poles.

Between 1968 and 1985, the Ivory Glacier programme generated several reports and numerous papers on the mass balance, meteorology and glacial erosion rates[12] During the 1970s Chinn also established a series of rain gauges across the width of the Southern Alps.

The inventory required a suite of parameters be used including; glacier area, elevation range, ice volume and photographic records.

By taking a sub-sample of 51 'index glaciers' Chinn could estimate their ice volumes from aerial photographs of the end of summer snowline (EOSS) elevation.