eli5 How does ice and snow melt when its below freezing.

Question

like not melting to water but an ice cube left out side will slowly get smaller even when its super cold out.

In: 5

Answer 1

Temperature is the average amount of energy in a system, so of all the really large number of water molecules in an ice cube, some small fraction of them will be above freezing temperature. For the same reason, you could set a glass of liquid water outside when it’s above freezing and you’d see some evaporating over time even though the outside temperature is well below boiling point.