The Living Snow Project (LSP), with the help of the outdoor recreation community, is building the largest database of pink snow microbiome biodiversity in the world. Pink snow, sometimes called watermelon snow, is a diverse group of microorganisms that are adapted to live in snow and are dominated by pink-colored algae.
The Living Snow Project (LSP), with the help of the outdoor recreation community, is building the largest database of pink snow microbiome biodiversity in the world. Pink snow, sometimes called watermelon snow, is a diverse group of microorganisms that are adapted to live in snow and are dominated by pink-colored algae.
Listen to this interview.
Noah Glick: First, tell me more about this pink snow. What is it? What do we know about it? Is it safe?
Dr. Alison Murray: Pink snow occurs in the spring to summer snowpack as the snow gets more liquid water in it. The pink color comes from what are green algae, but they have photoprotective pigments that are pink, red or orange. And that helps them as they get higher in the snowpack, protect them from the UV radiation from the sun.
Glick: Is this similar to the algae you’d see on Lake Tahoe, for example, but it’s just in the snow? When I hear about algae accumulating on Lake Tahoe or another body of water, it seems like, “Oh, that’s a bad thing, that there’s something going on with the health of the lake.” Is it the same thing in this case with the snowpack?