Very interesting stuff, I learnt a lot

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crank wrote:That's especially true when it comes to athletics.
If water ice were more dense than liquid water, the pond would freeze from the bottom up
zulumoose wrote:If water ice were more dense than liquid water, the pond would freeze from the bottom up
Only if it was cold enough to freeze the whole pond, since this doesn't happen now it wouldn't under those circumstances either. What would happen is that ice would start to form at the surface, then sink, and melt before it got to the bottom. This circulation may make a bit more heat transfer happen, but it wouldn't likely make the difference between ponds/lakes that only freeze a few inches deep now getting so much colder that ice crystals sinking as soon as they can break surface tension would reach the bottom intact and stay that way.
Fenrir wrote:Floating ice insulates the water body. If ice sank there would be no insulation and nothing to stop the water body progressively freezing.
zulumoose wrote:The heat variation is atmospheric, winter doesn't start underground.
drops below freezing will always start in the air above ground, and it will take a lot of time for that to transfer to the ground under the pond. In fact since white snow reflects the suns radiation a pool with "alternative" water that would freeze only from the bottom up may be warmer than an adjacent pool with water as we know it.
And since the hypothetical pools don't already freeze solid with normal water, it is already a fact that "water at depth would be warmer than surface water", since it demonstrably isn't frozen. There shouldn't be a dispute over this.
zulumoose wrote:...And since the hypothetical pools don't already freeze solid with normal water, it is already a fact that "water at depth would be warmer than surface water", since it demonstrably isn't frozen. There shouldn't be a dispute over this.
Freezing-point depression is the process in which adding a solute to a solvent decreases the freezing point of the solvent. Examples include salt in water, alcohol in water, ...
zulumoose wrote:...
And since the hypothetical pools don't already freeze solid with normal water, it is already a fact that "water at depth would be warmer than surface water", since it demonstrably isn't frozen. There shouldn't be a dispute over this.
DavidMcC wrote:Surely, the most important peculiarity of water is that it enable life to exist in the first place, not that it protects it.
zulumoose wrote:Actually since water is so common, the only peculiar thing is that we find its behaviour peculiar at all, instead of wondering why all the less common substances don't act the same.
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