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Basic science: understanding experiments
Basic science: understanding experiments

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2.2 What if ice was denser than water?

Figure 4

You’ve seen that water’s unusual property of being less dense as a solid than as a liquid leads to ice floating on water.

Think about how surface ice might affect things like aquatic life, water temperature, oxygen levels and circulation patterns.

Imagining a world where ice was denser than water and sank, rather than floated, consider these questions:

  • What might the consequences be for aquatic life?
  • How might denser ice affect small-scale bodies of water, like ponds and lakes?
  • How might denser ice affect oceans?
  • Could denser ice have far-reaching effects on the evolution of life?