It was great getting up this morning because there was a whole new layer of snow that had fallen overnight with more coming down! The snow changes everything about this place. It makes it look nice and fresh and gives it a clean winter feeling that makes things seem more fun. Snow also has some very distinct properties that make it pretty neat stuff.
Snow is not just frozen drops of rain. Rain that freezes in the air and falls is usually referred to as sleet. Snowflakes form when water vapor condenses directly into ice in the clouds. The pattern that appears is really a snow crystal. Out of all the trillions and trillions of large snowflakes, there are no two that are alike! Check out the information and the activities at this site:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/.
There are even great photographs of snow crystals that have been taken under a microscope!
This is what a snow crystal looks like under a microscope. There are many more at the Snow Crystal site.
Snow can change a lot of things. If you ever gone out right after a snowfall you may have noticed that it seems quiet. That is because fresh snow is full of air spaces and traps sound very well. It acts a dampener to the sounds, which changes the way you hear as well as the animals that are living in the area. Snow can affect weather and climate patterns. Because of the bright white color, snow reflects sunlight that reaches the surface of our planet. This reflective property of snow, or of anything, is called the albedo. You know that dark colors absorb more sunlight and get warmer than light colors. In the same way, a patch of exposed dark rock and ground will absorb more energy from the sun than a patch of snow covered ground. As the ice and snow begin to cover less and less ground and ocean in the polar regions, the albedo of the planet changes and warming occurs more. Look at this NASA link for the Vital Signs of the Planet, and what the arctic ice is doing. The site is:
http://climate.nasa.gov/.
Look at the Eyes on the Earth 3D, it is wonderful!
The Smiley Plots look a lot different on a snowy day. The mountains have disappeared.
I think this is one of the last snows the Healy area will see this season. Even with it snowing today the temperature was right up at freezing, which felt fairly warm. So I took some video of the snow falling right outside the cabin, and then some of the dogs enjoying a day off relaxing. Elizabeth and I then took the snowmobile out in the fresh snow and headed for the study site to take our Smiley measurements. While we were out there we took some snow density samples. After we cleaned up and were ready to return to the cabin, I thought it would be fun to try making a snow angel. So I did, and it was fun! The short video shows what it looks like and how things change here when it snows. For those of you students going up to the snow this week, have fun, be safe, and keep in touch!
This is what our snow day looked like: http://
Mr. Wood is having fun making snow angels in the new snow!