The presence of pinkish snow in the Rocky Mountains is piquing the curiosities of hikers, campers and photo-seekers this summer and raising a host of questions about nature, health and climate.
The coloration happens when algae swim to the surface and change colors to protect themselves from ultraviolet rays.
“It’s almost like it’s been sprinkled with Himalayan salt or even Kool-Aid powder,” Jana Brough, a mother hiking with friends and family at Tony Grove Lake in Utah’s Logan Canyon, said this week. “But when you scrape it you can tell it’s just on the surface.” The technicolor snow appears in high-altitude environments throughout the globe including the French Alps and Japan’s Mountains of Dewa when a perfect storm of conditions — water content, sunlight, temperatures and the presence of nutrients — awaken dormant green algae called chlamydomonas nivalis that thrive in cold temperatures. The algae swim to the surface of the snow, where they bloom and divide.
Hotaling said the algae poses little risk to human health or to animals like cattle, dogs or fish, should they encounter it as it melts into water. But even though it’s not a risk to clean water supply, the “watermelon snow” phenomenon does cause snow to melt more quickly, raising environmental concerns about seasonal snowmelt patterns and the longevity of the glaciers where the algae are known to thrive.
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