How an Igloo Slows Heat Loss: Snow, Air and Shelter
A shelter made of snow seems an unlikely place to warm up. Yet an igloo works because snow is much more than frozen water: it also contains...
Explore the Snow Addiction archive
Why does ice look blue, and what can a dramatic cold-weather video really demonstrate? These stories use winter scenes as starting points for explanation. Look for the difference between an observation, a proposed mechanism and a tested conclusion. Follow the snow, ice and weather collections to connect the science with photographs and everyday experiences.
A shelter made of snow seems an unlikely place to warm up. Yet an igloo works because snow is much more than frozen water: it also contains...
Lake Superior can sound like a cupboard full of glass when its ice starts moving. In Dawn M. LaPointe’s film from Duluth, thin plates gathe...
A clear soap bubble sits on snow. Then tiny feather-like shapes appear, drift and spread until the little sphere looks etched. ZALUSKArt’s ...
A flower is usually all bend, softness and movement. That makes the sudden brittleness in Minnesota Cold’s frozen-flower video so surprisin...
There is no need for a towering powder cloud to make an avalanche formidable. In Christian Mermoud’s footage from Mayens-de-Saxon, in Switz...
A pale fan opens above a snowy yard and hangs in the air. Videos of hot water meeting extreme cold look like instant snowfall, but that tid...
A dark circle sits within pale ice and snow, filled with a pattern that seems to radiate from the centre. It is easy to see why the origina...
A soap bubble normally gives you only a moment before it disappears. In Chris Ratzlaff’s Calgary film, the moment becomes something else: a...
Green curtains sweep across the sky, edged with brighter pink light. The aurora video circulated as a “superstorm,” a word that certainly f...
A cone of ice suddenly throws water into the air. It looks like a miniature eruption, which explains the name “ice volcano.” Along the Grea...
A map showing familiar coastlines disappearing beneath higher seas is a powerful way to visualise how much water is stored in ice. It is al...
Ice does not usually announce itself in a changing palette of vivid colours. Shawn Knol’s Ice Crystals Timelapse uses a particular lighting...
Before the spectacular dive comes a quieter moment. A red fox pauses above the snow, ears alert, concentrating on a world hidden below the ...
The stones are so easy to see that the surface almost seems to disappear. In this High Tatras video, transparent ice gives the viewer an un...
Winter water can look like a collection of different materials: glass plates, pale bubbles, tiny flowers and long white threads. The pleasu...
Cassini’s views of Titan reveal dark northern lakes and seas on a world very different from Earth. Their familiar shapes invite comparison ...
A canyon beneath Greenland’s ice sheet became visible to science through radar measurements rather than an ordinary camera. The 2013 study ...