Is it snowing in India's tropical southern city of Bangalore?
The picture above would certainly make you think so.
Unfortunately, the reality is quite different: what looks like snow is actually harmful snow-white froth that floats up from the city's largest lake and spills over into neighbouring areas.
Over the years, the 9,000-acre Bellandur lake in India's technology capital has been polluted by chemicals and sewage.
IT professional Debasish Ghosh has been taking pictures of the lake of "harmful snowy froth" for months now. Here is a selection of his pictures.
Comment: This has apparently been happening for a number of years on this lake, although this year the 'froth' became utterly 'other-worldly': it's thicker and smellier than ever, and it even caught fire!
This is what the 'froth' looked like in April this year:
And here it is on fire in May:
Most everyone is assuming that this is caused by untreated sewage pouring into the lake as a result of mismanagement of the city's explosive growth in recent years. There was a mass fish kill in a nearby lake in 2011. The following report in The Hindu attributes the froth's 'rotten eggs' sulphur smell to methane:
Utterly puzzled by the phenomena Siddaramaiah, Regional Officer (Bommanahalli division) of the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), said this was the first time in the city that froth or debris on top of the lake was reported to have instantaneously combusted.
"We believe it is because of methane build up along the surface. Sewage has been following into the lake, and a layer of oil and froth - which is caused by accumulating chemicals from detergents and cleaners - had formed. In one area, methane gas had started to accumulate within the froth. This is a highly combustible gas, and it must have caught on fire," he said.
While methane is a by-product of sewage, untreated sewage does not typically result in such 'fiery froth'. Given the hundreds of instances of unusual methane outgassing we've collected from around the world over the last decade, we naturally wonder if this 'froth' phenomenon may be the result of - or at least significantly amplified by - methane outgassing coming from below, either directly or tangentially related to the global increase in seismic activity.
Comment: This has apparently been happening for a number of years on this lake, although this year the 'froth' became utterly 'other-worldly': it's thicker and smellier than ever, and it even caught fire!
This is what the 'froth' looked like in April this year:
And here it is on fire in May:
Most everyone is assuming that this is caused by untreated sewage pouring into the lake as a result of mismanagement of the city's explosive growth in recent years. There was a mass fish kill in a nearby lake in 2011. The following report in The Hindu attributes the froth's 'rotten eggs' sulphur smell to methane: While methane is a by-product of sewage, untreated sewage does not typically result in such 'fiery froth'. Given the hundreds of instances of unusual methane outgassing we've collected from around the world over the last decade, we naturally wonder if this 'froth' phenomenon may be the result of - or at least significantly amplified by - methane outgassing coming from below, either directly or tangentially related to the global increase in seismic activity.
After all, if geysers of methane can erupt on a golf course in Ontario, and methane gas pockets can surface then detonate and leave behind incredible crater-holes in Siberia, anything is possible on our changing planet.