Dark algae Greenland can speed up melting of snow sheet

The dark algae growing on the surface of arctic ice sheets is likely to expand its limit in the future, a trend that melted, increase sea levels and increase warming.

“These algae are not a new event,” says James Bradley At the Mediterenian Institute of Oceanography in Marsile, France. “But if they bloom more intensely, or bloom is more broad, it would be an important thing to consider the future estimates of increase in sea level.”

Greenland’s snow sheet, which covers most of the islands, melting due to rapidly rising temperature, which is the largest single contributor for increasing sea levels worldwide.

Malevolent The algal species blooms on the ice patch, called the ablation zone, which is exposed as a snow line on the snow sheet in each summer. The bloom deepens ice, reduces its reflection and absorbs over heat, causing an estimated 10 to 13 percent melting in these areas.

To better understand this reaction loop, Bradley and his colleagues collected Malevolent Checked cells with samples and advanced imaging techniques from the south-west tip of ice sheet.

The results showed that algae are highly adapted to nutrient-poor conditions, suggesting that they can create inroads in ice at high altitude, where nutrients are rare.

Global Warming is already causing the ice line to retreat to increase height over time, highlights more ice, which is less reflective than ice and therefore accelerates the melting. Snow algae add another layer to these interactions, which must be responsible in future climate estimates.

“We have been studying glacier Algle Blooms for many years now, but one of the remaining one big question is how they are able to grow up to such a high number in such nutrient-poor snow,” Christopher Williamson At the Bristol University in Britain, who were not involved in the project. “A large part of understanding this puzzle is how much nutrients are required by glaciers algal cells and whether they are able to take and store rare nutrients available in the system efficiently. This study does a great job of displaying these things using state -of -the -art functioning. ,