Frozen Pond: Newsletter Challenge (November 2011)

Starting from the fact that any thermal difference generated water movement because of it's small scale, gets some significance ONLY for water not moving under the effect of the wind above it, i.e. stationary, like the water just under a layer of formed ice, actually this water property should tend to resist that thermal movement (other than thermal theory microscopic level molecule movement). So as a result it actually decreases equivalent "thermal conductivity" from ice surface to hotter water layers under it, which can be an important factor for life, and by the way, has no important contribution on dissolving oxygen in water process, but does seem to contribute to oxygen being kept diluted in water under an ice layer for longer time. S.M.

This is the type of complex answer we are looking for. There are so many complex variables. Does the ice "insulate" oxygen from the surface, from dissapation. Rankinstein.

I know you've noticed, but you can lower the temp of H2o below the point of freeze. It takes molecular motion to actually transform, maybe the environ. Rankinstein.

The way I understand it everything has molecular movement until it reaches absolute temperature.....-273°C.......where all molecular movement ceases.

That is unless they have changed that temperature in the last 40 odd years!!!

The expansion near freezing reduces the water's density allowing it to float atop the warmer body of water prior to its transition to solid phase. Without the expansion the water would freeze from the bottom up and kill everything in a closed body of water or displace it down stream if not enclosed.

GA for a nice clear and correct comment.

I thought it wasvery easy to understand, especially after I posted the Wiki page, but it seems that many others here still do not understand exactly how it works.....

Liquid water below 4° C must have some more weird physical properties.

As temperature goes down, raindrops falling on a windshield or metal roof sound peculiar even before an ice kernel develops or the whole drops turn into hail.

this is the way sound is made

Now wait a minute...

The answer has been posted. What kind of an answer is this for the question "Why is this fact important for the fish in a pond?"