Pink Snow Looks Cute But It's A Sign Of An Environmental Disaster

Cute as it looks, pink snow on the Presena Glacier in the Alps heralds something truly horrible.

The color comes from algae and it gives the usual white snow this bizarre color. Worse, the phenomenon can accelerate the melting rate of ice on the already fragile mountainous region.

Pink snow often happens in summer and spring as the algae need just the right amount of water, light, and warmth to develop. When the climate is unfavorable, the organism remains inactive under the ice and snow. And when it starts to warm up, the usual blank landscape comes to life with vibrant color.

According to Biagio Di Mauro, an expert at Italy’s National Research Council, what causes the pink snow on the Presena Glacier is Chlamydomonas nivalis, a type algae found in the Polar Regions and the Alps. A more common name for it is watermelon snow, and it can affect snowmelt.

Snow has been playing an important part in keeping our planet cool. The whiter the snow, the better it is at bouncing off sunray back to space. Global warming alone is more than enough to harm fragile regions like the Alps, now the algae come and make things worse.

Previous research shows the Alps’ glaciers will cease to exist this century if the Earth keeps warming up at this rate. While we have had some initial research looking at the effect of algae, more studies are needed to fully assess the impact of pink snow on the rate of melting as blooms will definitely be more common when our planet becomes hotter.

Presena Glacier isn’t the first place that sees pink snow this year. A few weeks back, watermelon snow appears in Alaska. March saw the same phenomenon occurred on Galindez Island, but in this case, it isn’t pink snow, it is more like bloody red snow.

Earlier this year, experts reported abnormal green algae blooms in another part of the planet.

Reasons why pink snow occurs vary and algae are just one of them. In 2019, New Zealand snow also turned pink because of smoke from the bushfire in Australia. In this case, ash plays a similar role to algae, which is to absorb sunlight and melt ice.

Researchers insist we must add this phenomenon to the climate models to fully understand its impact. So in short, pink snow is cute but it brings us no good.

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