The Capital Letter - by BerlinBear
Easy! The small lake requires less heat for it to thaw because it is, erm, smaller. Also, gulls have been sitting on it, and they have very hot bottoms.
(Do I get a prize?)
But why does the smaller lake require less heat for it to thaw?
4th Form Science Mr Bear. Don't mistake heat for temperature. A red hot rivet has a higher temp but an iceberg has more heat. Thus the greater mass of ice takes longer to thaw than the smaller mass.Is the prize a chocolate fish or and ice block?
I was going to say something along the lines of, the more ice there is, the longer it will take to melt...but Cufflinks got there first. Plus, I was rubbish at Physics.
Looking forward to the next question!
Hmmm, I get what you're all saying, but I still have a problem with the explanation. If, a red hot rivet has a higher temperature but an iceberg has more heat, wouldn't the ice on a big lake have more heat than the ice on a small lake?
Or does melting only have to do with temperature and not heat?
Cor blimey, you live over there! That is posh! My answer would be along the lines of the heating bill for the big lake not having been paid. I am the proud owner of a grade U (unclassified) in my Physics O Level (the exam you do (or did) when you're 16. Can't have been that hard). Anyway, you're heterosexual, so you should, genetically, know the answer to questions like this...
Think about it as safety in numbers. The more there is of the object the more heat required to increase its temperture to a point where it changes state from solid to liquid form. I can't see it having anything to do with sexuality, BiB. Obviously it doesn't normally concern bears as by the time they emerge from hybernation both lakes would be thawed. So the real answer is that this spring you got up too early, Mr Bear!!
I would speculate that flow rate also has something to do with it, as the water in the GroBer would be relatively still, while Kleiner could conceviably be moving faster, making ice less likely. (but then, that's just speculation...)
PiwoJasne is the only person close to a good answer, no prizes for the rest of you.
4th Form science does indeed tell you that if one block of ice is twice as big as another then it will require twice as much energy to melt it. So the bigger lake takes more energy to thaw it. However the point that has been missed is that the bigger lake (at least in surface area) is getting more heat delivered to it. If you model is that you ingnore heating from the ground and consider only heating from the air, then the only 'size' that matters is the surface area of the lake. The point that has been missed is that the larger lake will be heated by a proportionally larger volume of air on its surface. Therefore you would expect the thaw rate per meter squared to be the same for both lakes.
However the above model is clearly not the case so back to Mr. Bears question. The answer is that the the water must be flowing faster in the smaller lake than in the larger lake. THe effect of this is that each litre of water in the smaller lake will have more kinetic energy and takes more 'cold' to freeze it. This has the effect that the smaller lake will a) freeze more slowly, b) will tend to have thinner ice and hence c) will thaw faster.
Another consideration is that on these lakes that freeze it is common to put bubblers in the water near to wooden docks and boats in the water. Their job is to bring the warm water from the bottom of the lake (which is always at 4 degrees C but that a whole other physics lesson) to the surface so that the water doesn't freeze and damage the structures. You would expect a much higher density of such bubblers in the smaller lake (and from the pictures there are a large number of docks near the sculler) which will have the effect keeping the smaller lake less forzen and thawing it much faster.
Woohoo! Thank you all. I'm so glad it turned out to be complicated. I have learned a lot. Steady on there Bostanio, you've almost made physics sound interesting ;-P
Bostanio, we love it when you get all edumacational. Very sex-eh. Anyone would think you had a DPhil in Maths or Physics or sumfink.
I think it's yet more complicated still. I feel certain that heating of the ice from below comes into it too - something than Bostanio neglected. I say that heat from the land contributes to the melting of the ice, and, since the larger lake is very likely to be deeper, this effect is less noticable than on the smaller lake. This arguement is strengthened by the fact that lakes always melt first around the edges, and last in the middle.
(Worth noting BB, that whilst I have had an education that should allow me to answer this question with some confidence and authority, I've forgotten most of it, and this is just an educated guess)
I think these two links give a pretty good picture of what's going on... and since it's on the "Inter-net", you know you can count on it being accurate. (besides, the first article has a guy named Nanook in it!)
http://www.donmeredith.ca/
outdoo...onderLakes.html
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/we...s/
turnlakes.htm
Well! All those answers to the question, and yet no-one mentionned the epilimnion, thermocline or hypolimnion stratification zones. We readers are truly are a bunch of dullards, Mr Bear. Better make the next question about something simple, like rocket science, or brain surgery.
Of course, I _was_ going to use those terms, but those other individuals described things so much clearer than I could have, mostly due to the fact that I have no clue what those words mean.
(All hail Google)
ROFLMAO
I *am* going to make this a regular column. You guys are great.
Two questions for you first then, Mr Bear:
1. What is ROFLMAO?
2. Did you really write that comment at 4.28am, you nutter?
@ Twiglets
1) rolling on the floor laughing my arse off
2) Yes. Insomnia is a bitch.
Didn't know you suffered from insomnia, Dr Cuddly...
Commenting by HaloScan
