Adventures on Ice - Darren Harriott, Liz Morris, Christoph Salzmann and Felicity Aston

What It Covers

Scientists explore ice's unique molecular properties, from hydrogen bonding that makes it float to twenty different crystalline forms under pressure, plus how Arctic ice loss affects polar exploration and climate systems globally.

Key Questions Answered

• •Ice molecular structure: Water molecules form hydrogen bonds creating open crystalline structures where molecules stay farther apart than in liquid water, making ice less dense and causing it to float—a property critical for ocean ecosystems and climate regulation.
• •Multiple ice phases: Scientists have discovered twenty distinct ice forms (ice I through ice XX) that exist under different pressure and temperature conditions, including superionic black ice at hundreds of gigapascals that may exist inside Uranus and Neptune at thousands of degrees.
• •Arctic accessibility crisis: The North Pole became unreachable by surface travel after 2014 due to excessive open water from rapid ice loss, with the Arctic warming three times faster than anywhere else and likely becoming a commercial shipping route within thirty years.
• •Ice core climate data: The Beyond EPICA drilling project reached 2,800 meters depth in Antarctica, extracting air bubbles from ice over one million years old that reveal historical carbon dioxide levels and temperature patterns across multiple ice ages for climate analysis.