Spring is just around the corner and in southern Norway many are out to enjoy the sun’s rays.
Then maybe you have noticed a pungent smell?
Some people find it reminiscent of vomit or faeces.
But the stench has nothing to do with dog owners not picking up dog poo.
This is to blame
It all has a natural explanation.
– There is quite a lot of ice on the ground all around, and ice prevents oxygen from reaching the ground under the ice. This can cause the grass and plants under the ice to start to rot.
Marit Jørgensen says so. She is a researcher at Nibio (Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy) and explains why some places smell sour.
– When the plant remains break down, without oxygen being present, it can form butyric acid. Butyric acid has a sharp and nauseating smell. It smells terrible, says Jørgensen.
As the ice melts away and it gradually gets warmer outside, this smell will disappear quite quickly, according to the researcher.
Here it occurs
Jørgensen says winter has become more unstable, and that this leads to the phenomenon occurring more often inland.
– We see that winter is changing, and that ice cover is forming more often where there was previously no problem. The winter has become more unstable, and increasingly often we have long periods of mild weather followed by frost that can cause us to get covered in ice.
The researcher says there may also be other foul-smelling gases that create a sour smell, but that it is mainly about the lack of oxygen and that plants are rotting under the ice.
Therefore, the smell typically occurs in green areas. Jørgensen clarifies that it is not dangerous to smell or breathe in the foul-smelling gases that arise.
However, ice on the ground can have other consequences.
– If the lawn has been under ice for a long time, in the spring you can see that there are dead spots in the lawn that come to light when the ice melts. Therefore, there may be a lot of new lawn seed that needs to be bought in the spring, she says.
