omalleykacey
Why so Blue? by Kacey O'Malley
Kacey O’Malley
Natural
“Why so Blue?”
Why are glaciers blue? The colors of the rainbow each have different wavelengths and different energies. Typically, light is seen as a combination of all of these colors and so it appears to be white, but when light enters a glacier, it is broken into its component colors by the ice crystals inside. The colors with the longest wavelengths have the smallest energies; therefore red and yellow are absorbed by the thick ice and are not visible. In comparison, blue has a short wavelength and a high energy, and is not absorbed by the ice crystals. This is why we see a blue color when we look at the heavily compacted ice. One might wonder why snow does not have this same blue color? It takes a very thick and condensed piece of ice because the light has to travel a long way inside it to absorb enough red light for this to occur. The blue color of the ice is thus a way to measure its strength and age. Early explorers and glacier climbers know that the bluer the ice, the more reliant it will be. In this picture, you can see the striations in the glacier of the deeper, bluer ice compared to the shallower, white ice.
Another interesting physics observation from this picture is the reflection of the glacier striations in the Alaskan water. This demonstrates the Law of Reflection, showing that the angle of incidence, or the angle that the lines in the glacier make with the water’s surface, is equal to the angle of reflection, or the angle that we see the lines being reflected in the water.
Why so Blue? by Kacey O'Malley
Kacey O’Malley
Natural
“Why so Blue?”
Why are glaciers blue? The colors of the rainbow each have different wavelengths and different energies. Typically, light is seen as a combination of all of these colors and so it appears to be white, but when light enters a glacier, it is broken into its component colors by the ice crystals inside. The colors with the longest wavelengths have the smallest energies; therefore red and yellow are absorbed by the thick ice and are not visible. In comparison, blue has a short wavelength and a high energy, and is not absorbed by the ice crystals. This is why we see a blue color when we look at the heavily compacted ice. One might wonder why snow does not have this same blue color? It takes a very thick and condensed piece of ice because the light has to travel a long way inside it to absorb enough red light for this to occur. The blue color of the ice is thus a way to measure its strength and age. Early explorers and glacier climbers know that the bluer the ice, the more reliant it will be. In this picture, you can see the striations in the glacier of the deeper, bluer ice compared to the shallower, white ice.
Another interesting physics observation from this picture is the reflection of the glacier striations in the Alaskan water. This demonstrates the Law of Reflection, showing that the angle of incidence, or the angle that the lines in the glacier make with the water’s surface, is equal to the angle of reflection, or the angle that we see the lines being reflected in the water.