The Living Snow Project: using the power of citizen science to study alpine snow ecosystems

The Living Snow Project’s goal is to engage the outdoor recreation community in research that is characterizing the biodiversity of pink snow and its impact on snowmelt dynamics.

By empowering people of all ages to participate in science in the places they love to play, we help cultivate a deeper awareness of our living planet and a greater appreciation for the conservation of threatened ecosystems. 

Snow algae blooms, while natural, also cause harm to our alpine environments by increasing the rate of snowpack and glacier melt. The triggers for snow algae blooms are not well understood and we do not have historical records of blooms of algae in any mountain range. The Living Snow Project will provide baseline data of blooms and species distributions that will allow scientists to study the correlation of blooms with atmospheric conditions and climate change while tracking changes over time. Many groups are studying snow algae around the globe, but The Living Snow project continues to build the largest database of snow algae blooms in the world thanks to the help of backcountry enthusiasts.

In this talk, Robin Kodner, Professor of Environmental Science at Western Washington University and a 2024–2025 Fulbright France Scholar at the Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) will describe the biology of snow algae, their role in alpine ecosystems, the impacts of climate change on these systems, and our efforts to study them by involving the public as citizen scientists. 

https://wp.wwu.edu/livingsnowproject/