A type of algae that accelerates the effects of climate change has caused glaciers in Italy to turn pink.
Scientists are investigating after pink ice appeared on parts of the Presena glacier in the Italian Alps.
Biagio di Mauro, a scientist at Italy's National Research Council, said the colour is caused by a plant, which is more commonly found in Greenland.
“The alga is not dangerous, it is a natural phenomenon that occurs during the spring and summer periods in the middle latitudes but also at the Poles,” he told the Guardian.
The scientists, who previously studied the algae at the Morteratsch glacier in Switzerland, added that anything which darkens snow causes it to melt faster due to a higher absorption of radiation.
The plant, known as Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, is present in Greenland’s so-called Dark Zone, where the ice is also rapidly melting.
Normally ice reflects more than 80 per cent of the sun’s radiation back into the atmosphere but the algae darkens the colour of the glacier.
But as the darkened ice melts, more water and air provides hospitable conditions for further algae to appear.
This is what has created the red hues on the white ice at the Passo Gavia, altitude 2,618 metres (8,590 feet).
“We are trying to quantify the effect of other phenomena besides the human one on the overheating of the Earth,” Mr Di Mauro told the publication.
He also added that the presence of hikers and ski lifts could also have an impact on the algae.
