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Snow in the Antarctic turns blood red

Around a Ukrainian research station in the Antarctic, the snow has not been white for weeks – it is the color of blood. The ministry provides an explanation.

There has been an unusual natural phenomenon in Antarctica for weeks: The snow around a Ukrainian research station is colored blood red. The reason for this is an algae growing on snow, said the Ministry of Science in Kiev. The climate Change contribute to the fact that the microscopic algae with the name Chlamydomonas nivalis could multiply quickly.

Algae have an influence on glacial melt

According to the researchers, snowmelt is also accelerated because the reddish surface absorbs more sunlight than white snow, which reflects the light more. Recently, temperatures around 20 degrees Celsius have been measured in some places in the Antarctic.

The alga occurs in the world where there is permanent winter – in addition to the Antarctic, also in the Arctic and in parts of the Alps. In 2016, experts from the Geo Research Center in Potsdam wrote in a study that the influence of snow algae on the glacier melt has so far been underestimated. This effect must be taken into account in future climate models.

“It is hard to imagine that algae have a significant influence on it,” said Thomas Leya of the Potsdam Fraunhofer for Cell Therapy and Immunology, which researches the algae, the German Press Agency. So far, this has not been fully investigated. The research also knows too little about how the microscopic algae can “produce the masses of cells it needs for the phenomenon of red snow”.

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