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Algae turns Italian Alps glacier pink prompting concerns over climate change

AFP via Getty Images
AFP via Getty Images

A type of algae that accelerates the effects of climate change has caused glaciers in Italy to turn pink.

Scientists are investigating after pink ice appeared on parts of the Presena glacier in the Italian Alps.

Biagio di Mauro, a scientist at Italy's National Research Council, said the colour is caused by a plant, which is more commonly found in Greenland.

“The alga is not dangerous, it is a natural phenomenon that occurs during the spring and summer periods in the middle latitudes but also at the Poles,” he told the Guardian.

Biagio di Mauro takes samples on the Presena glacier in northern Italy (AFP via Getty Images)
Biagio di Mauro takes samples on the Presena glacier in northern Italy (AFP via Getty Images)

The scientists, who previously studied the algae at the Morteratsch glacier in Switzerland, added that anything which darkens snow causes it to melt faster due to a higher absorption of radiation.

Biagio di Mauro takes samples on the Presena glacier in northern Italy (AFP via Getty Images)
Biagio di Mauro takes samples on the Presena glacier in northern Italy (AFP via Getty Images)

The plant, known as Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, is present in Greenland’s so-called Dark Zone, where the ice is also rapidly melting.

The ice has turned pink due to the algae (AFP via Getty Images)
The ice has turned pink due to the algae (AFP via Getty Images)

Normally ice reflects more than 80 per cent of the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere but the algae darkens the colour of the glacier.

But as the darkened ice melts, more water and air provides hospitable conditions for further algae to appear.

This is what has created the red hues on the white ice at the Passo Gavia, altitude 2,618 metres (8,590 feet).

“We are trying to quantify the effect of other phenomena besides the human one on the overheating of the Earth,” Mr Di Mauro told the publication.

He also added that the presence of hikers and ski lifts could also have an impact on the algae.

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