Naked Science: Snowball Earth (12 of 24)

Naked Science: Snowball Earth

New research Suggests that when sea water Freezes at very low Temperatures, its composition Changes and it can become more Reflective.
At the university Of washington's polar science Center, bonnie light studies the Relationship between ice and Light.
In the cold room, she Freezes buckets of saltwater At different temperatures.
One Of the buckets is exposed to Snowball earth temperatures of Minus 10 degrees.
The surface of This ice becomes much whiter.
okay, so this bucket contains Sea water that was frozen in a Cold room at 5 degrees above Cold room at 5 degrees above zero fahrenheit, And we consider this a good Laboratory analogue for modern Day sea ice on planet earth.

And You can see that the surface of It is kind of grey coloured, It is kind of grey coloured, dull appearance.
And this bucket also has salt Water in it, although this salt Water was frozen at about 10 Degrees below zero fahrenheit, And we consider the ice in this Bucket to be a good analogue for Sea ice on snowball earth, Because it's very cold.
[narrator]: at snowball earth Temperatures, the composition Of the sea ice changes, turning Its surface from grey To bright white.
and you can see that these Crystals, in this case, have Started to collect at the Surface of this cold ice.
And so I can kinda scratch away these Crystals, and you see that it's Basically just a deposit on the Surface of this cold ice.