It turns into pink and red during the warm weather which kicks away all the sun as the algae’s have the automatic safeguard against the sun.
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This snow, which thrives in high-latitude and high-altitude regions, is found in areas comparable to the Arctic, where Chlamydomonas nivalis algae, which is normally green, has a chemical reaction to the UV rays from the sun and takes on a reddish-pink hue. More contemporary findings have corroborated this notion.
A more concerning issue is that the algae on snow could continuously bloom and multiply causing more snow to melt.
The researcher Stefanie Lutz published a study about the decline of albedo, or reflection of sunlight on the earth’s surface, in snow and ice caused by pink algae.
Scientists like Lutz are also concerned that the rosy snow could create a problematic cycle, in which algae darkens the snow, which leads to melting and runoff, which leads to more algae growth, and so on. People typically try not to do that because darker colored objects absorb a higher amount of incoming light than light-colored objects, which tend to reflect light. The albedo effect is a process of glaciers to keep the earth cool by reflecting sunlight.
That’s a big problem for our environment due to the fact that it could worsen global warming and climate change. The researchers have revealed that under the algae’s soft-hued blanket, the snow melts around 13 percent faster. They noted that bacterial communities vary from place to place, but the same algae that makes watermelon snow is apparently so global that the time has come for climate models to take their effects on snow and ice melt into consideration. These pink algal blooms decrease snow and ice albedo – how they reflect heat. The research found an inter-relationship between the levels of algae and the rate of ice melting.
The Arctic is melting at an unprecedented rate and key drivers are changes in snow and ice albedo. But when it is summer and spring, snow algae starts blooming, as per the study.
The simplest way to understand this is to think about wearing a black shirt on a hot day. GFZ researchers analyzed the biodiversity of the algae and estimated how much they contribute to the darkening of the surface.
It mostly occurs during the warm months and over the course of the winter, they fall into a dormant state.
“The algae need liquid water in order to bloom”, Lutz told Gizmodo. And while it’s still unclear just how large these blooms can get, lead study author Steffi Lutz of the University of Leeds says they can be quite widespread in the Arctic by summertime.
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“Based on personal observations, a conservative estimate would be 50 percent of the snow surface on a glacier at the end of a melt season”.
