Why do lakes and rivers only freeze on the surface and not all the way through?
In: 10
1. Water has an extremely high heat capacity, it is higher than almost every common substance. That means it takes a huge amount of energy to change the temperature of water. The air is one of the few systems with enough available energy to cause this sort of process
2. Water is one of the few substances on Earth where the liquid form is more dense than the solid form. This is why ice cubes float in your drink. If ice were to form at the bottom of a body of water, the lighter density will cause the newly formed block of ice to float towards the surface.
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