In the wintertime Arctic, cracks in the ice called “leads” expose the warm ocean directly to the cold air, with some leads only a few meters wide and some kilometers wide. They play a critical role in the Arctic surface energy balance. If we want to know how much the ice is going to grow […]

Adapted from material by Daniel Moberg How small is the smallest possible particle of ice? It’s not a snowflake, measuring at a whopping fraction of an inch. According to new research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the smallest nanodroplet of water in which ice can form is only as big as […]

A newly comprehensive study shows that melting of Himalayan glaciers caused by rising temperatures has accelerated dramatically since the start of the 21st century. The analysis, spanning 40 years of satellite observations across India, China, Nepal and Bhutan, indicates that glaciers have been losing the equivalent of more than a vertical foot and half of ice each year […]

The Arctic is melting faster than we thought it would. In fact, Arctic ice extent is at a record low. When that happens—when a natural system behaves differently than scientists expect—it’s time to take another look at how we understand the system. University of Utah mathematician Ken Golden and atmospheric scientist Court Strong study the […]

Contrary to what you may have been taught, water doesn’t always freeze to ice at 32 degrees F (zero degrees C). Knowing, or controlling, at what temperature water will freeze (starting with a process called nucleation) is critically important to answering questions such as whether or not there will be enough snow on the ski […]

How do insects survive harsh northern winters? Unlike mammals, they don’t have thick coats of fur to keep warm. But they do have antifreeze. Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) prevent ice from forming and spreading inside their bodies. The existence of these AFPs has been known for decades, but the mechanisms governing this unique survival technique have […]

Something almost magical happens when you put a tray full of sloshing, liquid water into a freezer and it comes out later as a rigid, solid crystal of ice. Chemists at the University of Utah have pulled back the curtain a little more on the freezing process, particularly in clouds. Their research shows that when […]