The Alps, also known as the "backbone of Europe", is because it is the highest mountain range in Europe, with an average altitude of more than 3,000 meters, of which there are more than 100 peaks above 4,000 meters above sea level.
At the top of the mountain, there is snow and glaciers that do not melt all year round, and vegetation is difficult to grow. However, scientists have now observed a strange scene here: the snow on the Alps has turned red, looking like watermelon red from a distance, so it is also called "watermelon snow", sometimes also known as "blood snow".
Scientists naturally know the reason for the formation of watermelon snow, which is formed by tiny algae growing in alpine snow, which are green at the beginning because they contain chlorophyll, which helps them to photosynthesize, so "green snow" can also form in some places.
But these algae grow in a very harsh environment, not only to face the threat of low temperature, but also to suffer from strong ultraviolet rays, for which snow algae produce carotenoids of red pigment molecules, as a sun visor to protect the chlorophyll in their bodies, so the formation of red snow.
Scientists were surprised not by the formation of watermelon snow, but by the formation of watermelon snow here. It should be known that although snow algae is hardy, in the past, snow algae could not survive here at all, the reason is that it is too cold here, and it is precisely because of this that the mountains can remain snowy all year round. The presence of snow algae here means that the temperature here is falling, which is not a good thing for the local area.
Snow algae, on the other hand, have colors, and the colors absorb photons from the sun, causing glaciers to reflect less to the sun.
It should be known that on the earth, the reflectivity of ice and snow to the amount of solar energy is extremely strong, even reaching more than 80%, which makes a large part of the solar energy unable to stay on the surface of the earth, and is reflected back into space, thereby reducing the temperature of the earth and curbing global warming.
Because the ability of ice and snow to reflect sunlight is so strong that when there are more and more glaciers, there is less and less solar energy that can remain on the earth's surface, forming a vicious circle that causes the earth to enter the great ice age.
However, the threat we face today is global warming, the appearance of snow algae on the ice and snow on the top of the mountain, and snow algae will reduce the ability of snow and ice to reflect sunlight, one study showed that in a melting season, red snow algae can reduce snow reflectance by 13%, which will lead to more and more solar energy remaining on the earth's surface, causing the earth to warm up. While the earth is heating up, it will cause more ice and snow to melt, which will make more and more solar energy stay on the earth's surface, causing the earth to heat up.
Such a vicious circle will inevitably lead to an inevitable rise in the earth's temperature and usher in an extremely hot event.
In fact, the melting of glaciers not only fails to reflect more of the sun's rays, but also poses a direct threat to humans.
We know that the temperature in the glacier is very low, and the microorganisms will stop moving and even go dormant in extremely low environments, which will allow biological remains to be stored here for a longer period of time.
For example, Oates the Iceman, whose remains were found beneath the glaciers of the Ötztal Alps, are so well preserved that even muscles can be seen. It is precisely because of this that the two tourists who found him also mistakenly thought that he had just recently been killed, but in fact he was a person living in the prehistoric period of 3300 BC.
For a long time in the past, he was frozen in the glacier, but as the world warmed, his remains were revealed from the glacier and was only discovered.
In addition to alpine glaciers, a large number of prehistoric remains have been found in the Arctic permafrost, such as cave bears, cave lions and mammoths, and even many human remains have been buried here, but they have not been decomposed by microorganisms and are still relatively well preserved.
This is not a good thing for humans, as global warming, the remains in the permafrost layer are gradually exposed to nature, and it is important to know that the microorganisms in these remains are likely to recover from their dormant state and have the ability to re-infect humans or animals, which also makes some diseases that have disappeared in the human world likely to come back again.
For example, the 1918 flu caused about 100 million deaths worldwide, and now the flu has disappeared, but in the permafrost buried people who died of the 1918 flu, they may have preserved the virus.
In fact, the full sequence of the virus gene in 1918 was extracted from a woman named "Lucy", who was buried under the permafrost, the remains were well preserved, and in 1997, scientists took samples of the virus from her lungs, solving the mystery of the 1918 influenza strain.
It is not difficult to imagine that glaciers and permafrost may also store more viruses, and once global warming, these viruses may re-enter the ecological chain, affecting people or animals.
It's because glaciers affect us so much that scientists are so shocked by the watermelon snow that appears in the Alps!