Re: Density of water.

[Brian Whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

At 12:25 PM 12/2/01, Jim Green wrote:
> At 23:51 01 12 2001 , Bernard C wrote:
> >Right, Hewitt plots (ordinate) the volume of one gram of water instead
> of the
> >inverse.  No matter, he's plotting water not ice.  Ice (normal near zero C
> >[ice I]) 917 kg / m^3 or sg ~ .92  Water @ 100 C is 1.04 mL / g or sg
> 0.96 So
> >ice floats as per your experience (and mine).
>
> Bernard, you seem  to be missing the essential point -- the fact
> that  makes life possible!  Water at freezing is less dense than water at
> 4C therefore water freezes on the _surface_ of the body of water.
>
> Jim Green
> mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
> http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen


This gee whiz item is a favorite of the divine design folks.

If water density uniformly decreased above freezing point,
it would cool at the surface of cooler air as usual  - and becoming denser
when cooler then sink, until it reached it reached its density level.
 Relatively warmer water at the bottom would rise, and so I suppose,
there might be a vigorous circulation while a temperature gradient exists.
And quite possibly on significant bodies of water, there would always be a
gradient, and a circulation, so that icing would be postponed perhaps
banished from significant bodies of water....

This does not seem specially lethal to life, when I consider the life that
thrives
in sulphide springs at great depths.


Brian Whatcott
  Altus OK                      Eureka!