'Watermelon snow' is making glaciers in Alaska melt faster

United States Forest Service Region 5/Flickr Microbes are pushing glacial snow into the red. An algae species that grows on glaciers gives the snow a crimson hue, which increases the amount of sunlight that the snow soaks up and makes it melt faster, new measurements confirm. On Alaska’s Harding Ice-field,these microbes are responsible for about a sixth of the snow-melt in algae-tinged areas, researchers report September 18 inNature Geoscience.The finding suggests that future climate simulatio...