Earlier, we published a story about how clouds near airplane contrails get brighter, reflecting more solar radiation to space. Now, on the surface, this new study says that Arctic glaciers are melting faster because red algae is changing the albedo of the ice, increasing uptake of solar radiation. It is just one more example of how complex the climate issue is and how oversimplified looking at one variable, CO2, is.
Cosmopolitan snow algae accelerate the melting of Arctic glaciers
From GFZ GEOFORSCHUNGSZENTRUM POTSDAM, HELMHOLTZ CENTRE
The role of red pigmented snow algae in melting Arctic glaciers has been strongly underestimated, suggests a study to be published in NATURE Communications on June 22. White areas covered with snow and ice reflect sunlight; the effect is called albedo. It has been known for quite some time that red pigmented snow algae blooming on icy surfaces darken the surface which in turn leads to less albedo and a higher uptake of heat. The new study by Stefanie Lutz, postdoc at the German Research Centre for Geosciences GFZ and at the University of Leeds, shows a 13 per cent reduction of the albedo over the course of one melting season caused by red-pigmented snow algal blooms. “Our results point out that the “bio-albedo” effect is important and has to be considered in future climate models”, says lead author Stefanie Lutz.
The red snow phenomenon occurs mainly in warm months. During late spring and summer, thin layers of meltwater form on ice and snow in the Arctic and on mountains. Liquid water and sunlight are crucial for the growth of snow algae; over the winter season they fall into a dormant state.
In their study, the team led by Stefanie Lutz and Liane G. Benning investigated the biodiversity of snow algae and other microbial communities using high-throughput genetic sequencing. They took about forty samples from 21 glaciers in the Pan-European Arctic. The sampling sites ranged from Greenland over Iceland and Svalbard to the north of Sweden.
Together with UK colleagues they found a high biodiversity within the bacteria, depending on the locations they lived, whereas the biodiversity of the snow algal communities was rather uniform. In other words: Throughout the Arctic regions, it is most probably the same algal species that cause red snow and thus accelerate melting. The blooming leads to a runaway effect: The more glaciers and snow fields thaw the more algae bloom which in turn results in a darkening of the surface which again accelerates melting. Liane G. Benning, head of the GFZ’s section „Interface Geochemistry”, says: „Our work paves the way for a universal model of algal-albedo interaction and a quantification of additional melting caused by algal blooms.”
For years, “bio-albedo has been a niche topic”, says Daniel Remias, biologist at the Fachhochschule Wels, Austria. The snow algae specialist comments on the study: “For the first time ever, researchers have investigated the large-scale effect of microorganisms on the melting of snow and ice the Arctic.” Remias visited the GFZ for an international snow algae meeting organized by Liane G. Benning.
He stresses the interdisciplinary approach of the project: “Steffi Lutz’ and Liane G. Benning’s study for the first time combines microbiological and genetic analyses of red snow algae with geochemical and mineralogical properties as well as with the albedo of their habitat.” An international, UK led team, including the GFZ’s researchers will work this summer on the Greenland Ice Sheet where currently a record-breaking melting rate due to high temperatures is observed. Steffi Lutz, Liane G. Benning and UK colleagues will investigate whether and to what extent pigmented algae contribute to the record melting.
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OMG! We are all going to die! Oh, its just algae. Nevermind.
Record breaking melt rate? What, again? Must be our fault.
Well, maybe Wiki and Aristotle can fill us in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_snow
Red algae, soot; just one more gnat dancing on the climate elephant.
Lots of amusing comments but I have one that I have been pondering.
Snow algae is a “green algae” coloured red. (not a spelling error as I’m CDN) :). As such it photosynthesizes CO2. During the cold winters the algae go dormant and are buried in snow. When it warms the algae come to life and release cells which travel to the surface of the snow where the do the pink watermelon dance. However, the original algae are still buried and they consumed CO2 from the air buried in the snow.(Wikipedia)
Similar green algae grow in ice and consume the CO2 eventually dying off when the nutrients are depleted and as light levels decrease.
Methanogens are microrganisms that produce methane in anoxic (anaerobic) conditions. They use CO2 and H2 to generate methane.They have been found buried deep in the ice of Greenland. A recent study indicated that there are aerobic methanogens as well.
These are 3 organisms shown to live on and in ice and consume CO2.
My hypothesis is that they all work to reduce the CO2 trapped in ice.
Red snow algae above in the firn of the Antarctic Ice sheet would consume the CO2 diffusing from below and from the atmosphere above, The ice algae in the ice below would continue to photosynthesize consuming the available CO2 until light and nutrients resulted in its death. The methanogens which aren’t dependent on light and are present in the deep ice would continue to consume any CO2.
I have not found any studies that examine this nor have I read anywhere how the ice core CO2 data accounts for this.
DCS said:
OH MY MY, …… do those “CO2 measuring” ice-core researchers know about those hungry algae?
DCS,
The survival of different types of bacteria in ice depends of the type and the ice temperature…
There is an interesting work on that matter:
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/13/4631.full.pdf
For the Vostok ice core, see point K. At -40°C some bacteria can survive (hundred)thousands of years, but the only remaining activity is DNA repair. The carbon source indeed is CO2 and the bacteria use the oxidation of NH4 as energy source. That is transformed into N2O, where the N2O formation and CO2 use has a fixed ratio. If we take that as base, the total CO2 use is less than 1 ppmv for ice parts with huge inclusions of dust and bacteria.
Interesting stuff and amazing how some life forms can survive in such circumstances, but hardly influencing CO2 levels in Antarctic ice cores.
Things in the Greenland ice cores are quite different: small inclusions of sea salt, including carbonates, normally have no influence on CO2 levels, but (in)frequent highly acidic volcanic ash from nearby Iceland gives in-situ CO2 formation, increasing with the (now abandoned) wet measurement technique of the early days where ice samples were melted and CO2 extracted.
What does the existence of CO2-consuming algae in snow tell us about past atmosphere reconstructions from bubbles in ice cores? (Genuine question.)
See my response above and the very interesting reference therein.
Algue are mostly found back in coastal ice fields, much less in (far) inland and high altitude ice. Temperature also is a huge point: some bacteria can survive -40°C for extreme long periods, but that is restricted to DNA repair. These are mostly found with dust deposits as was the case during the main glacial periods where there was little moisture in the air and (desert) dust could blow in from very long distances.
FE said:
OH MY MY, …… dats vunderful news to know that individual bacterium have evolved DNA that tells them when all or parts of their own DNA gets FUBAR …… and also the DNA that is “coded” to repair any or all parts of their FUBARed DNA.
Now I’m here to tell ya that that Anti-FUBAR DNA should be extracted from those bacterium post haste ……. and be made #1 Priority for use in all “gene replacement therapy” medical issues for correcting and/or repairing all those nasty biological problems that us human are subject to.
It must be all of that “DNA repairing” activity during the NH wintertime ….. that produces humongous quantities of CO2 that is emitted into the atmosphere by the trapped bacteria in the cold and frozen soil, permafrost and ice ….. and which clearly explains the “saw tooth” shape of the Keeling Curve Graph
Eritas
Phweee!!! I’ve been saying this for over a decade ever since seeing the red- and green-algaed snows of the Antarctic Peninsula melting faster at the end of summer (early in the summer the algae is buried under the new winter snows do doesn’t bloom until later).
But, at the time I first thought the whole algae thing was a huge unknown in the calculations, it was because someone was saying the algae are sucking up CO2 as well, so basically that opened up my eyes to the entire microbial and algal worlds are ignored in the climate equation and at the end of the day, they make up most of the living things on Earth… Albedo vs respiration – could cancel eachother out. ???
While the specific growth and wane of red (and green) algue is not known, the CO2 balance of all life on earth is known within reasonable limits: that can be deduced from the oxygen balance: most life forms either use CO2 and produce oxygen or use oxygen and produce CO2.
By looking at the overall oxygen use over the years and subtracting what was used of fossil fuel burning, the remainder is what the biosphere as a whole does. That shows that the biosphere is a small, but growing, producer of O2, thus a sink for CO2. The earth is greening, despite humans using more feed and food…
See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5462/2467.short
and
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
It looks like these folks have a web site about their work, see http://darksnow.org/black-and-bloom-microbial-processes-darken-and-accelerate-the-melting-of-the-greenland-ice-sheet/
A couple bios that stick out:
I guess it’s time for someone to propose an “Algae Tax”.
Here’s a few more to add to “and-yet-another-unaccounted-for-climate-variable”.
(Isn’t it amazing how many variables are not entered into the climate models yet they remain so precise?)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/12/tisdale-an-unsent-memo-to-james-hansen/#comment-985181
Gunga Din says:
May 14, 2012 at 1:21 pm
joeldshore says:
May 13, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Gunga Din: The point is that there is a very specific reason involving the type of mathematical problem it is as to why weather forecasts diverge from reality. And, the same does not apply to predicting the future climate in response to changes in forcings. It does not mean such predictions are easy or not without significant uncertainties, but the uncertainties are of a different and less severe type than you face in the weather case.
As for me, I would rather hedge my bets on the idea that most of the scientists are right than make a bet that most of the scientists are wrong and a very few scientists plus lots of the ideologues at Heartland and other think-tanks are right…But, then, that is because I trust the scientific process more than I trust right-wing ideological extremism to provide the best scientific information.
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What will the price of tea in China be each year for the next 100 years? If Chinese farmers plant less tea, will the replacement crop use more or less CO2? What values would represent those variables? Does salt water sequester or release more or less CO2 than freshwater? If the icecaps melt and increase the volume of saltwater, what effect will that have year by year on CO2? If nations build more dams for drinking water and hydropower, how will that impact CO2? What about the loss of dry land? What values do you give to those variables? If a tree falls in the woods allowing more growth on the forest floor, do the ground plants have a greater or lesser impact on CO2? How many trees will fall in the next 100 years? Values, please. Will the UK continue to pour milk down the drain? How much milk do other countries pour down the drain? What if they pour it on the ground instead? Does it make a difference if we’re talking cow milk or goat milk? Does putting scraps of cheese down the garbage disposal have a greater or lesser impact than putting in the trash or composting it? Will Iran try to nuke Israel? Pakistan India? India Pakistan? North Korea South Korea? In the next 100 years what other nations might obtain nukes and launch? Your formula will need values. How many volcanoes will erupt? How large will those eruptions be? How many new ones will develop and erupt? Undersea vents? What effect will they all have year by year? We need numbers for all these things. Will the predicted “extreme weather” events kill many people? What impact will the erasure of those carbon footprints have year by year? Of course there’s this little thing called the Sun and its variability. Year by year numbers, please. If a butterfly flaps its wings in China, will forcings cause a tornado in Kansas? Of course, the formula all these numbers are plugged into will have to accurately reflect each ones impact on all of the other values and numbers mentioned so far plus lots, lots more. That amounts to lots and lots and lots of circular references. (And of course the single most important question, will Gilligan get off the island before the next Super Moon? Sorry. 😎
There have been many short range and long range climate predictions made over the years. Some of them are 10, 20 and 30 years down range now from when the trigger was pulled. How many have been on target? How many are way off target?
Bet your own money on them if want, not mine or my kids or their kids or their kids etc.
“over the winter season they fall into a dormant state.”
Indeed they do, they are covered with new snow, the same way that the soot is covered with new snow during the winter.
In 100 years it will turn out as a layer in the ice, and it might be different from other layers or it might not.
Red snow? Oh nooo! The first time I noticed red snow was high in the Colorado Rockies during a summer climb. My climbing partner said it was algae. It happened more than 40 years ago, and I’ve noticed it on and off ever since. I guess we’re supposed to be alarmed by the red snow and the “It’s worse than we thought” meme that goes with it.
I’ll file this story with the alarmist stories about “thermokarst lakes.” You know, those lakes at high latitudes and altitudes that trap methane from decaying vegetation beneath the ice in winter. Drill a hole in the ice, strike a match and whoosh – you got a natural blow torch. Don’t stand to close or you’ll singe your eyebrows. We’re supposed to be alarmed because, well, you know, it’s a flame and it’s hot, and methane traps heat just like CO2, and OMG! There’s just so much to be worried about, my head may explode. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU-9JucyCQI
For all my trips to Alaska, I never saw pink glacial ice.
I’ve seen it repeatedly both in the Arctic (Spitzbergen) and on mountain glacier. It’s actually rather common
As always when some sensational new discovery about glaciers pops up I go back and check A E Nordenskiölds descriptions of his expeditions to Greenland in 1870 and 1883, the two first times ever that scientists actually set foot on, and studied, the inland ice. And what did I find on p. 218 of “Den andra Dicksonska expeditionen till Grönland” (published 1885):
“…my companion professor Berggren then [1870] discovered that this [dust] deposit was the substrate for a peculiar ice flora, consisting of a large number of microscopic plants, of which some are also found on the ice itself, and, however puny they might seem, surely play an important role in nature, since by their dark color they absorb sunlight far better than the blue-white ice. Probably we have, to no small extent, these plants to thank for, that the ice-cap that once covered all of Scandinavia has melted away” (my translation from Swedish)
So what else is new in Climateland?