Ruize’s Blog

When I was young, I could always hear that the temperature of south pole is becoming higher and higher. The one I heard the most is that there will be dozens of countries will disappear because of the temperature increasing. If the temperature increases a lot in south pole and north pole, the sea level will increase as an amazing speed and finally dozens of counties and cities will drown in the ocean.

 

Recently, after the COVID-19 appeared, I have been hearing a phenomenon which give me a new understanding of the destruction of nature. It is “watermelon snow”. The reason why people called this snow is because the color of this snow is red, it seems like the blood on the snow. I found an article titled “This blood red snow is taking over parts of Antarctica”. In this article, it told me the watermelon snow is caused because of the earlier in March, Antarctica experienced record high temperatures, causing the southernmost continent’s ice caps to melt at an unprecedented rate. Here is a picture on Facebook which took by the scientists on Feb 24th.

Even though it looks like the blood cover the snow, but it is not actually blood. The red is a kind of algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis and because of the high temperature, the algae have enough condition to intermediate propagation. Slow bloom will keep influence the environment too. Here a sentence said by the ministry. “Because of the red-crimson color, the snow reflects less sunlight and melts faster. As a consequence, it produces more and more bright algae.”

 

Because of normal people will never gone to south pole in their life, so we can’t prove that the watermelon snow is as serious as they said. But that can’t stop us to protect the environment. Whatever this is a real news or fake news, people need to realize the environmental problem after COVID-19 virus because there are too much environmental changes happened together with COVID-19. Hopefully the watermelon snow could get controlled in the future and the sea level could stop increasing.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/blood-red-snow-taking-over-parts-antarctica-180974309/

8 Replies to “Ruize’s Blog”

  1. Hey Ruize, I really liked reading your blog. I had never heard of this watermelon snow phenomenon. I think that’s because, as you said, no one visits the South Pole so no one really is looking there. I enjoyed how you related it to what you heard as a child. It’s powerful to see how things continuously change within our lifetime as well as how climate change appears is more places than I imagined. Thanks for your post!

  2. I really liked this blog, I’ve heard of air pollution settling on snow decreasing its albedo but have never thought algae could do the same so far south. The positive feedback loop you brought up is especially frightening, and further illustrates how climate change must be fought now before it spirals out of control.

  3. Your blog has a great sense of purpose. Oftentimes, “humans” forget the destruction we are causing to places (like the south pole). The image depicts the red snow as shedding with blood, but humans never get to witness such tragedies because we do not travel there. In your last sentence, be specific about why you want the “watermelon snow” to be controlled and sea levels to stop rising? Is it because these circumstances will infringe human survival? A circumstance other than cities will drown.

  4. I agree with your comment about how people need to realize that global warming is still a serious issue that we as a society need to control in the midst of the COVID-19 virus. It was interesting how you talked about the concept of watermelon snow, I never knew about it before this blog. I think you did a good job of informing your audience about this topic and I liked the image you used. What do you think could be something that we could do to address this issue further?

  5. Hey Ruize, this is certainly an issue that I have never heard of. However, I am very glad that I am educated about it right now. It is true that no one really visits the North Pole or South Pole and it could really stab the people in the back when climate change affects that neighboring countries around the pole. I have heard about melting ice glaciers, starving polar bears, and the albedo affect. This watermelon snow is pretty intriguing because at first I thought it was blood but it was actually red algae. Also, I agree with you that people need to pay more attention to climate change because one thing for sure is the Coronavirus has affected a lot of people globally. Imagine how destructive climate change can be.

  6. I really enjoyed this blog post mainly due to its obscurity. I love how you covered a topic that has never really been mentioned before, and adding the image to the blog added much more because I was able to visualize the phenomenon more. Though there most likely is not much research surrounding this algae, I would love to know more about the science of why it occurs, and how much of a warning sign is this algae compared to the rest of the world.

  7. I really enjoyed reading your blog, it was on a topic that I was unaware of and it was written very clearly. I liked that you acknowledged that it is not a political topic and how you connected the watermelon snow to COVID-19. I also liked that you included an image specifically because it would be hard to visualize the snow without one.

  8. Hi Ruize! I think your blog is very interesting, it has given me an insight into my previous intellectual blind spots that I never thought would be so bad at the South Pole. I appreciate that you have a dialectical view of the story at the end of the article, and that you are not blindly convinced of its veracity. You emphasize that whether this news story is true or not, people should take environmental issues seriously, and that’s all that matters.

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