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From the Christchurch branch of the Met Society comes the following contribution.  Well done  Trev:

Trevor Chinn, newly capped Doctor of Science.

Trevor Chinn has been  awarded a Doctor of Science (DSc) degree for his work in glaciology and alpine processes, Antarctic glaciology and polar processes.

His portfolio comprises an enormous volume of high-quality work sustained over nearly 40 years. His contributions to NZ snow and glacier research are recognised as pioneering, and the field investigations and data monitoring he established form the basis of the ongoing understanding of the state of the country's cryosphere and its trends. The issues that emerge from Trevor's work are not only regional, they contribute to the scientific understanding of climate change and the impact on the global cryosphere. Without his vision to start these measurements and his determination to maintain them, even during fraught funding regimes and government restructuring, modern research would be significantly restricted. These measurements include annual monitoring of end of summer snowlines on glaciers and some of the few direct mass balance measurements of glaciers, especially the Ivory and Tasman. These have formed a valuable foundation for such research as trends in glacier behaviour and glacier modelling.

Trevor Chinn has compiled a definitive inventory of the more than 3000 New Zealand glaciers. His inventory makes a valuable contribution to the global glacier inventory maintained in Zurich. Similarly in Antarctica, his field measurements of the Dry Valleys were far seeing. Notable are his attempts to measure and understand the hydrology of their lake and limited river systems.

He pioneered the study of glaciers that feed into the Dry Valleys. He grappled with such issues as flow, mass balance and melt of these glaciers.

Over his career, Trevor has had the knack of identifying and obtaining field data for some important alpine processes. This involved measurements in the daunting field environment of the Southern Alps, where heavy precipitation, floods, landslips and extremely difficult access have deterred previous investigators. His measurements of rainfall distributions across the Southern Alp were the first to suggest that the Southern Alps were much wetter than mapped by the New Zealand Meteorological Service. With annual values exceeding 12 metres, he was able to demonstrate that the West Coast is amongst the wettest places in the world.*

There is no doubt that Trevor's work as submitted in portfolio made a significant and original contribution to earth science, particularly in understanding New Zealand glaciers and their response to climate change.

*PS:  One of Trev's great expressions is "God's own wet zone"