eli5 Why is the bottom of Ice glaciers etc in a darker blue shade than the above ice?
In: Planetary Science
These heavy top layers press the air out of the deeper layers of ice. This causes the ice to form large, dense crystals. These crystals extract most light that hits it leaving short waved blue light to be reflected, thus dark blue.
The air has been squeezed out of it. Snow is white, it’s water+air. The more it is compressed, the more the air is compressed, as water isn’t really compressible. At the bottom the volume is almost all water.
As far as “blue” vs other colors, that’s the same as why the sky is blue. Blue light has the short est wavelength and highest energy so it’s scattered differently in “clear” things.
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