(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Why is Snow in Antarctica Turning Red?
Antarctica a continent situated in the southern hemisphere is in news these days. Over the past few weeks snow around Antarctica’s northernmost peninsula, has taken red tinge. Due to this red tinge, the snow is being called as “watermelon snow”. It is a phenomenon which is known for years now since the ancient times. But this snow is raising concerns on the rate at which the glaciers will melt away and eventually affect sea-level rise.
In this DNS we will know about why this red snow happens, what is signifies and why it turns red.
Antarctica for the last one month has experienced high temperatures. This caused the ice caps in the southern most continent to melt at very extraordinary rate. With this extra ordinary rate of melting snow, there has been a change of color from white to red snow.
For a few weeks now, snow around Ukraine’s Vernadsky Research Base, located off the coast of Antarctica’s northernmost peninsula has turned red. This red snow is dubbed as watermelon snow. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher is believed to be the first person to give a detailed account of this red snow. He described at that time using the terms worms and grub, which, in present times is known as algae. The alga causes the snow to turn red in color.
The alga species is known as Chlamydomonas nivalis. It exists in snow in polar and glacial regions. It carriers a red pigment to keep itself warm. The species is the most common type of snow algae found in snowfields and mountains across the world.
As per a report of 2016 in New York Times, algae found around the Ukrainian research base grow well in freezing temperatures and liquid water. During the summer times these typically green algae produces a natural sunscreen. This sunscreen colors the snow in shades of red and pink. It dose not turns red until the weather warms up. The cell’s carotenoids—the same pigment that gives pumpkins and carrots their orange hue—absorb heat and protect the algae from ultraviolet light, almost like sunscreen.
It also helps the algae to keep themselves warms during the winters. The report mentions that the darkening of the snow due to the tinge helps in absorbing more heat as a results it melts faster. The more algae are together, redder the snow will be. The more sunlight the algae receive, the more it produces the “watermelon red” pigment, causing the snow to melt faster.
The red snow attracts the suns heats and supports in melting of the snow in its surrounding faster. The darker the tinge the more is the heat absorbed by the snow. The algae are not uncommon to other polar regions around the world. They change the albedo, which means the amount of light or radiation the snow surface is able to reflect back. Changes in albedo lead to more melting of the snow. In the melting of snow in the Arctic, the key drivers have been snow and ice albedo, according to a 2016 study in the journal Nature.
The melting of the snow and glaciers is not a good indication. As human interventions are increasing, climate and ecosystems are changing and having adverse effects. Some extreme algal blooms have appeared in the oceans of the world. These have different features and mostly have adverse effects hampering the climatic conditions.
