Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The water cycle is powered from the energy emitted by the sun. This energy heats water in the ocean and seas. Water evaporates as water vapor into the air. Some ice and snow sublimates directly into water vapor. Evapotranspiration is water transpired from plants and evaporated from the soil. The water molecule H
This growth process yields first-year ice. In rough water, fresh sea ice is formed by the cooling of the ocean as heat is lost into the atmosphere. The uppermost layer of the ocean is supercooled to slightly below the freezing point, at which time tiny ice platelets (frazil ice) form.
This process is known as thermohaline circulation. In the Earth's polar regions ocean water gets very cold, forming sea ice. As a consequence the surrounding seawater gets saltier, because when sea ice forms, the salt is left behind. As the seawater gets saltier, its density increases, and it starts to sink.
The formation of sea-ice is accompanied by brine rejection, resulting in water with a higher salinity and density and therefore buoyancy loss. When ice melts there is a freshwater flow and exposure to the atmosphere. If water turns into ice, there is more salt in the water and less exposure to the atmosphere.
As seawater freezes in the polar ocean, salt brine concentrates are expelled from the sea ice, creating a downward flow of dense, extremely cold, saline water, with a lower freezing point than the surrounding water. When this plume comes into contact with the neighboring ocean water, its extremely low temperature causes ice to instantly form ...
Somewhere under the four sheets of curling ice being used for the Beijing Olympics is the swimming pool where Michael Phelps splashed his way to history in the 2008 Summer Games. At first glance ...
If the ice drifts during the long intervals between the phase changes (frozen and liquid), the result is a net local distillation, where the sea ice was formed and a net local freshening of water, where the sea ice melts.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!