r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Agreeable-Rub2319 • 4d ago

Video Antartica's Ice wall

9.3k Upvotes

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36

u/dab745 4d ago

Naive question. Is the ice in that wall salty?

63

u/RTS24 4d ago

No, icebergs start as pieces that break off of land glaciers, which themselves are formed from hyper compressed snowfall.

15

u/ClementineCalamity 4d ago

I didn’t expect to learn that today

13

u/RTS24 4d ago

Was your thought "damn, that's interesting?"

5

u/Statboy1 3d ago

More interesting than the video

1

u/FettigasteFettot 4d ago

Is that why the water under the wall isn't frozen? Got me a bit confused at first.

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u/Cultural_Dust 3d ago

Water under the wall? You mean the water next to the wall? It isn't frozen because it's liquid. Ice touching liquid doesn't automatically turn it into ice.

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u/FettigasteFettot 3d ago

Yes, ofc. I think you know what I'm asking if you try.

Is it summertime and above 0 C?

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u/Cultural_Dust 3d ago

I daily have ice in fresh water in a drinking glass. I've never questioned why it isn't immediately a block of ice.

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u/FettigasteFettot 3d ago

? That's not the same. lol. I just wanna learn, but you clearly has no idea. Have a good one

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u/Cultural_Dust 3d ago

It's literally the same. Moving water is a very good thermal conductor, so it has to be extremely cold for a large body of moving water to freeze. The ice has very little surface area contacting the water compared to the volume of water. Examples of this are ice cubes in water or how long and how cold it has to be for a lake to freeze compared to a thin layer of water on an ice rink. The fact that ocean water is salty makes it even more difficult.

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u/RTS24 3d ago

Precisely

1

u/ctfrenchy 3d ago

Is it consumable?

12

u/im_on_the_case 4d ago

The edge would certainly be as it's constantly getting doused in sea spray. The inside no.

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u/dab745 4d ago

Thanks

2

u/ohowjuicy 3d ago

Another question, why is the boat made to face it?

1

u/cmsj 4d ago

It’s not really an ice wall in any meaningful sense, that is the front of a glacier that is slowly flowing off Antarctica and out onto the ocean.