NPR's Morning Edition featured a chat with Robin Kodner, associate professor of Environmental Science, about her work studying algal blooms that turn snow pink at high altitudes, and what they might mean for the environment.
From "Why snow is turning pink at high altitudes," an interview with Ayesha Rascoe:
RASCOE: Are these blooms becoming more common? 'Cause you said it's not unusual to have the algae there, but is it new?
KODNER: That's an excellent question, and I feel like, as a scientific community, we're still trying to figure that out. There haven't been that many people around the world studying snow algae, but we'd predict that they would be getting worse or more intense as the climate warms and snowpack and glacier snow melts more regularly and earlier in the season. But we're still collecting the data to say for sure.
Kodner directs the Living Snow Project, which engages volunteers in collecting snow algae samples when they're up in the mountains.