Sea Ice Insulates the Ocean Beneath It
By Sue Pike / yorkweekly@seacoastonline.com Posted Jan 2, 2018 at 3:44 PM Updated Jan 2, 2018 at 3:44 PM Sea Ice-pancake ice to be exact-in a local harbor We have had a cold past week -- temperatures hovering down around 0 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s amazing to me that birds and other animals can tolerate these conditions with such seeming equanimity. Ducks hang out in icy water. And while wild birds prefer open water to drink, they can get what they need from snow or any food that has some water content (like insects and wild fruits) - but I worry anyway and sporadically put out little dishes of water around the bird feeders, which probably aren’t much help since they freeze so quickly. Kids are skating on the local ponds and the stream out back is gurgling under a bubble-strewn cover of ice, icicles dangling down into the rushing water beneath. Salt water has a lower freezing point than fresh, but with these sub-zero temperatures it too is freezing over. Chunks of ice a