By James Rogers, Fox News

July 7, 2020 | 11:46am

Remarkable aerial pictures show pink-colored snow in the Presena glacier in the Italian Alps.

A number of news reports say the strange pink snow in the glacier near Pellizano is the result of the algae Ancylonela nordenskioeldii, which is typically found in Greenland.

However, Biagio Di Mauro, a researcher at the Institute of Polar Sciences in Italy’s National Research Council tweeted that the pink snow was probably the result of Chlamydomonas nivalis, which is a snow alga. Ancylonema nordenskioeldii, he explained, is a glacier alga.

The phenomenon is quite common in the Alps, Di Mauro tweeted.

Imporant clarification:

1- The alga was probably Chlamydomonas nivalis (a snow alga), not Ancylonema nordenskioeldi (a glacier alga)

2- the phenomen is quite common in the Alps

3- the relationship with climate change has yet to be proven@guardian @afpfr https://t.co/mG6RARexTD

— Biagio Di Mauro (@DiMauro_b) July 6, 2020

A number of news reports cited a possible link between the pink snow and climate change, although Di Mauro said that this is yet to be proven.

In a study published in the European Journal of Phycology in 2005, scientists described Chlamydomonas nivalis. “‘Red snow’, the macroscopic expression of a massive growth of unicellular algae on alpine and polar snow fields, has been a well-known phenomenon for more than 2000 years,” they wrote.