Over the past several weeks, the ice around Ukraine's Vernadsky Research Base located on Galindez Island, off the coast of Antarctica's northernmost peninsula, has been coated in what researchers are calling 'raspberry snow.'
This phenomenon, which Aristotle noticed way back in the third century B.C., is known as"watermelon snow,""blood snow" and a host of other less poetic names.The phenomenon's red color comes from carotenoids in the algae's chloroplasts. In addition to their crimson hue, these pigments also absorb heat and protect the algae from, allowing the organisms to bask in the summer sun's nutrients without risk of genetic mutations.
That's good for the algae but not great for the ice. According to the Ukrainian researchers, it’s easy for these blooms to kick off a runaway feedback loop of warming and melting. "Snow blossoms contribute to climate change," the team wrote in the Facebook post."Because of the red-crimson color, the snow reflects less sunlight and melts faster. As a consequence, it produces more and more bright algae."
The more heat the algae absorbs, the faster the surrounding ice melts. The more ice that melts, the faster the algae can spread. That, in turn, leads to more warming, more melting, and more algal blooming. A similar feedback process is driving more extreme algal blooms in oceans all over the world, resulting in surreal scenes like an invasion of sea foam in Spain and blue,
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