Three ominous signs appear on the earth: green snow in Antarctica, red snow in the Alps, and polar noctilucent clouds

Entering the third decade of the 21st century, many people feel that everything is not right, the familiar life is gone, and the world has become completely different from before. Your feeling may be correct. In addition to the virus that continues to wreak havoc, scientists have discovered three ominous signs since May, indicating that the threat of climate change to humans may have become more and more serious.

Tall noctilucent clouds were spotted over Bamburgh Lighthouse in Northumberland, England, in June. Noctilucent clouds are a mesospheric glowing phenomenon and are the tallest clouds on Earth, appearing at the edge of space at an altitude of 76 to 85 kilometers. Scientists still don't fully understand noctilucent clouds, but they may be ice crystals formed by the very little water vapor in the mesosphere atmosphere, which comes from the decomposition of methane, a greenhouse gas. Noctilucent clouds usually appear over the polar regions at latitudes from 50 degrees to 70 degrees, but now more and more noctilucent clouds are appearing in farther regions, and the noctilucent clouds are becoming brighter and brighter, which is considered to be related to climate change. Warmth has a lot to do with it.

In May, researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK and the British Antarctic Survey found that green snow algae is turning snow on the Antarctic Peninsula and surrounding islands green enough to be visible from space. This is because algae blooms due to climate warming have accelerated the melting of ice and snow. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

At the beginning of July, in part of the Presena Glacier in the Italian Alps, scientists suddenly discovered that the ice and snow turned a terrible pink. After sampling and analysis, the pink snow was determined to be caused by an algae called polar snow algae. of. The increase in temperature promotes the growth of algae, causing the ice and snow to darken, absorbing heat and causing more melting, which promotes further growth of algae, resulting in the appearance of large areas of pink ice and snow, which is also known as watermelon snow. In February of this year, watermelon snow near the scientific research stations in Ukraine and Argentina in Antarctica was also dyed red overnight, which is shocking.

After seeing this phenomenon, Elisa Pongini, a tourist from Florence, said with emotion that the earth is giving back to us everything we have done to her. 2020 is a special year, and terrible things have happened. Previously in Greenland, scientists also found that ice and snow turned pink.

Noctilucent clouds, green snow algae, and watermelon snow, these previously rare phenomena are now appearing on a large scale, which may indicate that the earth is undergoing profound changes. However, regardless of whether these changes are terrible or not, we have no choice but to face them bravely, and hope that everyone can clearly realize the harm to the earth and ourselves caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases.