Colorful snow algae is blooming in Japan's alpine areas. What does this mean for climate change? - The Japan Times
Colorful snow algae is blooming in Japan's alpine areas. What does this mean for climate change? | The Japan Times
On the slopes of Mount Gassan, one of the three sacred peaks of the Dewa Sanzan in the heart of Yamagata Prefecture, colorful patches of snow are piquing the interest of Japan’s geoscientists.
That curiosity, however, doesn’t stem from the vibrancy they bring to a remote, wintry landscape. Instead, it’s how they affect the natural balance in vulnerable ecosystems and their potential to perpetuate climate warming that has scientists conducting research on the 1,984 meter peak.
They are a result of snow algae, which thrive on melting snow surfaces. These colorful organisms proliferate throughout the snowpack each spring when increased sun intensity, nutrients and water availability provide favorable conditions for their growth. First, snow algae cells turn from spores into motile cells, and then they swim from the soil to the snow’s surface, where they photosynthesize and reproduce to form dense “blooms” of green, orange or red on the thawing snow.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.