Frozen facts
Hi HIW, I absolutely love your magazine. I find it so fascinating and it has a really engaging layout. I love brain dump. I am always asking random questions, so it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one! I do have a question that’s been bugging me for a while. If the polar regions are so cold that there are icebergs and everything is frozen, then why is there still water? Why hasn’t all the water frozen over? Jazz
We love to hear your feedback and explore the questions our readers have. While it is possible for the ocean to freeze – the North Pole’s polar ice cap is a layer of frozen seawater – the ocean needs much lower temperatures than freshwater to freeze. The snow, glaciers and icebergs that you mention are actually thick masses of frozen freshwater, not salty seawater. The high volume of water in the sea, currents distributing warmth and the salt preventing freezing are all factors in this case.