Most comprehensive study ever done on ice completed

Washington - In a new study, researchers have analysed all types of ice and the structures and chemical and physical processes where it is involved, from climate change and the origin of life to its presence in the atmosphere and comets.

Researchers at the Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra and other CSIC institutes have published the most comprehensive study ever done on ice in the world.

According to the authors of the study, it addresses the most important contemporary issues in a field of research that is “red hot”.

This study reviews recent international research studies on ice in terms of ice types and the structures and chemical and physical processes where ice is involved. This is the most comprehensive study ever done on all ice types and their properties.

The scientists Julyan Cartwright and Ignacio Sainz Díaz at the Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (a joint center of the University of Granada and the Spanish Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC) are some of the participants in this study.

“Ice can adopt a wide variety of forms when it is formed at extremely low temperatures an pressures, or when it forms in comets, planets or dust particles in the interstellar space,” Diaz said.

The same researchers affirm that “ice can affect the chemical and physical properties of the atmosphere –as it can form clouds– and large ice sheets”.

Ice can also play “a major role” in climate change and even in the origin of life, as some theories place the origin of the first living things on Earth in oceanic ice sheets. Finally, the article also analyses the presence of ice on Mars or in comets.

If ice was better known, “it would contribute to understand a wide range of scientific phenomena”, Diaz said.

The article also analyses why avalanches cannot be predicted yet.

“Snowslides are caused by a change in the inner structure of ice particles in the bonds of layers that are physically different. Such changes cause top layers to slide off the bottom layers. However, at present, the stability of top layers cannot be determined yet,” the Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra researcher said.

The study has been recently in journal Reviews of Modern Physics.