Red and green snow spotted in Antarctica near the Ukrainian base. Picture via Facebook
The same phenomenon occurred last year. You remember?
And here the green snow...
Here some more pictures of the strange snow phenomenon in Antarctica:
Comment: The text accompanying the photographs translated by Facebook and tweaked by SOTT reads:
IN ANTARCTICA AGAIN ′′ BLOW ′′ SNOW: INSTEAD OF WHITE HE HAS Raspberry AND GREEN COLOR
At the end of the Antarctic summer in the area of our station ′′ Academician Vernadsky ′′ there is such a phenomenon as ′′ blossom ′′ of snow. This year the snow changed color again: instead of white, became green and raspberry.
This coloring is emerging as a result of the development in the snow of microscopic algae. They breed disputes that are not afraid of extreme temperatures and kept in the snow throughout the long winter. When the weather conditions become favorable, the disputes begin to sprout.
Green gives a pigment of chlorophyll, and red gives a carotene layer containing cells of certain types of micro algae. By the way, this layer protects algae from ultraviolet radiation.′′ Blossom of snow ′′ contributes to climate change. After all, due to coloring, the snow reflects less sunlight and melts faster. As a result, there are more bright algae in it, from which melting still speeds up.′′ Last year's information about raspberry snow near the Ukrainian station was [published] not only all Ukrainian, but also the world media and scientific publics. Thanks to such popularity, this news was seen by scientists from the British University of Cambridge and offered a joint study to determine which Antarctica square is covered in colorful snow in summer ", said Eugene Wild, Director of the National Antarctic Scientific Center.
The research is planned soon, it will be due to verification at the site of satellite photos. The results of this work will allow you to assess the scale of melting Antarctic snow as a result of global warming in a new way.
Thanks for the photo Анна Soyna (Anna Soina) and Yevhenii Prokopchuk
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Comment: As per the text above, it appears that not only is this a relatively unusual phenomenon, but the researchers do appear to link it to the shift occurring on our planet. However, it's clear that this is not due to the global warming, the Antarctic as just one examples is seeing much colder summers, such that it's disrupting wildlife. And elsewhere on the globe, whilst the seasons are increasingly erratic, overall the planet appears to be cooling.
See also:
- Earth's expanding ocean anoxic zones and the correlation with periods of geologic upheaval
- Mysterious new invasive algae smothering Hawaii's coral reefs
- Lack of oxygen and algae blooms identified as cause of mass mortality event of starfish
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