We’ve seen many forms of Leidenfrost effect — that wild, near-frictionless glide that liquid droplets make on a very hot surface — over the years, but here’s a new one: Keep reading
Tag: melting
Mushy Layers
In many geophysical and metallurgical processes, there is a stage with a porous layer of liquid-infused solid known as a mushy layer. Such layers form in sea ice, in cooling Keep reading
The Shapes of Melting Ice
Water is an odd substance because it is densest at 4 degrees Celsius, well above its melting point at 0 degrees Celsius. This density anomaly means that melting ice takes Keep reading
Antarctic Meltwaters
Cerulean blue meltwater glints in this satellite image of the George VI Ice Shelf. Wedged between the Antarctic Peninsula on the right and Alexander Island on the left, the ice Keep reading
Iceberg Melting Depends on Shape
Not all icebergs melt equally. Through a combination of experiment and numerical simulation, researchers have shown that an iceberg’s shape underwater strongly affects how it melts. Specifically, icebergs in a Keep reading
Albedo Effect
Temperature isn’t the only factor that determines how ice will melt. In this photo, a dark oak leaf absorbed more solar radiation than the reflective ice around it, causing the Keep reading
Eroding Ice
When glaciers form, they do so in layers, with clear blue ice sandwiched between sediment and air-bubble-filled white ice. Because each of these layers absorbs sunlight differently, they don’t melt Keep reading
Frozen Wavelets
Photographer Eric Gross captured these surreal alpine landscapes in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Although the lake’s surface appears to have frozen waves, the prevailing theory is that these mounds and divots Keep reading
Ice Patterns
Periods of freezing and thawing can leave complicated patterns in ice, as seen in this aerial photo of Binnewater Lake in New York. Ice rarely forms evenly on large bodies Keep reading
Ice Labyrinths
Pattern formation is extremely common in nature, from the dendritic growth of trees and snowflakes to the stripes of a tiger. A new paper describes how a thin layer of Keep reading