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snow of tomorrow

Snow of Tomorrow | What is artificial snow made of?

How do the chemical and biological properties of artificial snow affect the environment?

by Nora Els 02/24/2020
Artificial snow has become an integral part of Alpine skiing and many ski resorts routinely cover the majority of their slopes with snow. When all the artificial snow melts in spring, the meltwater enters the water cycle. But what exactly is in it?

Nora Els is a doctoral student at the Institute of Ecology and investigates the chemical and biological properties of artificial and natural snow in the "Lake and Glacier Ecology" working group. For a recently published study, she took samples in Obergurgel and compared artificial snow, fresh natural snow and older snow that has been on the slopes for some time. Here she summarizes the results of this study for us:

Do natural and artificial snow differ chemically and biologically?

Yes! Snow is a mixture of water, mineral and biological particles and chemical components. Natural and artificial snow differ greatly from each other chemically and biologically.

Artificial snow contains significantly higher amounts of dissolved sulphate, calcium, magnesium and potassium than natural snow. Natural snow, on the other hand, contains higher amounts of chloride, nitrogen and carbon. Sodium and ammonium are contained in comparable amounts. Artificial snow contains large mineral particles, natural snow contains more small mineral and biological particles, as well as parts of insects.

The concentration of bacteria is higher in artificial snow. The composition of bacteria and fungi in artificial snow largely corresponds to that of the reservoir from which the water for the snow cannons comes and its inflow and differs greatly from natural snow. Artificial snow contains a number of fungi from the air layer close to the ground, which were introduced during the production process. Natural snow can also contain fungi, but the concentration varies significantly more than in artificial snow.

In order for the water droplets from the snow cannon to quickly turn into ice particles, they need so-called ice nuclei to which water particles can attach. Ice nuclei are small dust particles or bacteria, for example, and the process of ice nucleation plays an important role in the efficiency of artificial snow production. The most efficient ice nuclei are membrane proteins from bacteria, in particular the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae ("Snowmax"). However, adding these is prohibited in Tyrol. Natural snow contains many different bacteria that can serve as ice nuclei.

Natural snow that was skied on for a day contained a range of fibers and wax abrasion. The microbial composition of "skied" snow also differs greatly from fresh natural or artificial snow and contained a particularly high number of active biological ice nucleating agents and bacteria associated with humans.

What causes these differences?

The water used to produce artificial snow is taken from storage ponds fed by rivers and rainwater. Furthermore, 70m³ of air per hour is compressed and mixed with production water under pressure during the artificial snow production process. The microbial and chemical composition of artificial snow is therefore shaped by the geological, hydrological and ground-level atmospheric properties of the catchment area.

Fresh snow falls from clouds. The snow crystals form much further away from the place of precipitation and are exclusively influenced by the conditions in the atmosphere. This also affects the composition of the bacteria and fungi they contain.

Do these differences affect ecosystems?

When large quantities of artificial snow are produced and distributed, the input of nutrients and microorganisms into the alpine ecosystem changes.

While it is not known how many of the microorganisms survive in the ecosystems, the DNA of dead microorganisms can also be taken up and incorporated by other organisms.

Further research projects are needed to draw precise conclusions about the impact of the altered biological and chemical composition of artificial snow.

The study by Nora and colleagues was published in 2019 in the scientific journal Frontiers in Microbioloy:

Baloh, P., Els, N., David, R., Larose, C., Whitmore, K., Sattler, B., Grothe, H.: Assessment of Artificial and Natural Transport Mechanisms of Ice Nucleating Particles in an Alpine Ski Resort in Obergurgl, Austria; Frontiers in Microbiology; 2019.

This article has been automatically translated by DeepL with subsequent editing. If you notice any spelling or grammatical errors or if the translation has lost its meaning, please write an e-mail to the editors.

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