Questions tagged [ice]
For questions about ice (the solid form of dihydrogen monoxide) in its many forms.
11
votes
5answers
2k views
What could trigger powerful quakes on icy world?
Imagine a planet orbiting a star some billions of lightyears away from us, the planet is 4 times the mass of Earth and is covered with ice 100km thick on average. It is believed that liquid ocean ...
16
votes
19answers
3k views
How to make ice magic work from a scientific point of view?
I've recently been imagining a world of magic with heavy influence from chinese wuxia and xianxia. In such worlds, there's often various fire and ice magic, among other different types. Now, fire ...
11
votes
2answers
2k views
What color should the snow be in this chlorine world?
This question is in the same context (the same world) proposed by Steven L. Gillett in his book: "World-building".
And actually there have been some other questions about this same chlorinated world. ...
7
votes
8answers
2k views
How can I turn ice into gold?
I have my eyes on this new Porsche but all I have is an unlimited supply of ice and a molecular distillery. How can I convert this ice into gold?
The molecular distillery can disassemble and ...
2
votes
9answers
1k views
Building my Flat Earth, how to make my Ice walls last for eternity [closed]
In a world where
Earth does NOT have gravity (Gravity does not exist).
Our oceans are created by Ice walls.
Ice walls? How can they exist so long?
In the Flat Earth model, the Ice walls are situated ...
8
votes
9answers
2k views
How to ensure the safety of a surface base on Europa?
If I have a research & mining outpost established on the surface of Europa, in which there is a small complex of buildings, how do I claim to have them protected from potential breaks in the ice (...
7
votes
2answers
152 views
A snow sea: How to make water snow light/smooth enough to obtain fluid properties under 1 gravity
A roughly earth-size planet orbits a cool G-class star, but barely within its circumstellar habitable zone ("Goldilocks zone") allowing liquid water. It has a shallow inclination and and lackluster ...
6
votes
6answers
687 views
How Can I Build Ice On an Iceberg With Primitive Tech?
Let's say a group of people live on icebergs. They want to shape them - e.g., let's say they want to add a pier to their iceberg, how do they "grow" the ice.
Prefer a primitive answer, but if there ...
5
votes
3answers
110 views
Wheel-based vehicle vs Ground-gliders
In a mostly snowy world (snow deserts, snow jungles, etc) with a few underground cities built with magitek, most popular vehicles are rovers/gliders (think speeder bike from Star Wars). Would there be ...
1
vote
4answers
198 views
Getting through the ice, to the ocean of Europa [closed]
Trying to figure out the practicalities of drilling through the ice on Europa's surface, to drop a sub into the water beneath.
From what I understand the three most viable methods would be
Wait for ...
4
votes
2answers
142 views
What types of challenging atmospheres might exist on an ice planet?
We know that Venus has a poisonous carbon dioxide and hydrochloric acid atmosphere at a temperate of over 800 °F, but what about an ice planet? Mars is mostly freezing with a trace atmosphere, we have ...
0
votes
2answers
175 views
Can ice asteroids cause an icy ship
Question
If a ship went through an asteroid belt where the asteroids are mostly ice, could the ice in any way transfer onto the ship and give it coatings of ice in various places, or would there be ...
5
votes
7answers
406 views
Aliens with freezing powers
So I have been doing some thinking and I now am trying to design some aliens who can exhale very cold gasses or cool the atmosphere around them as a side effect of their metabolism and also survive in ...
0
votes
2answers
123 views
If ice was denser than water what plants could survive?
Are there any plants from our universe that would be able to live in this crazy alternate universe where ice is denser than water?
4
votes
3answers
214 views
How strong could a land of ice clouds be?
In my world, there is a forest of giant trees on both polars. The trees create a canopy that is perpetually covered in ice. This frozen canopy extends so high that it supports a "land" of frozen ...
8
votes
3answers
1k views
Could water be separated from a mixture by natural condensing/freezing?
Our colony has landed on a planet which is a complete barren desert wasteland, the surface as dead as the moon but also extremely cold, being quite far from the local star. They have settled at the ...
15
votes
5answers
2k views
How would a microscopic organism create kilometre long fibre optic cables from ice
My story premise is that a human expedition to Europa has happened and the travellers have tunnelled through the ice and formed a colony in the ocean.
When they breached into the ocean, they ...
7
votes
2answers
198 views
Landships on a Snowball Earth?
I've been playing a lot of Deserts of Kharak lately, and I am wondering if landships depicted in game, which are essentially seagoing ships on tracks, would work in a Snowball Earth scenario. By ...
9
votes
4answers
293 views
How to efficiently protect a city from constant snowstorms?
Sort of an extension of
With minimal terraforming, what features/structures would need to be built to protect a 25mi radius city from wind?
but with some more items to consider.
For whatever ...
6
votes
4answers
1k views
How to make ice magic possible? [closed]
My Writers SE question about an ice magic user reminded me to ask this question.
I'm writing a long (~1000 pages) hard fantasy story (in French, don't judge me on my English :p).
In this story, ...
4
votes
3answers
237 views
What are the effects of generating ice from water vapor on a large scale?
Let's take the most famous scene from Frozen where Elsa creates her ice palace up in the freezing mountains. Now imagine Elsa doing the same thing at sea level, in the summer, where the conditions are ...
2
votes
4answers
149 views
Rocky core, internal ocean, ice crust, external ocean
So I writing a story where we terraform Titan using super heavy green house gases where the lower part of the atmosphere near the surface stays warmer. Because of this, a portion of the moon's icy ...
0
votes
2answers
217 views
Frozen inside an ice cube
You are a mad, demented evil scientist getting revenge on John Smith, a secret agent that has thwarted your plans one too many times. Intent on making Mr Smith suffer, you decide to capture his family ...
34
votes
17answers
11k views
Dropping ice in the ocean to stop global warming
In the TV show Futurama, an in-show infomercial mentions that Earthicans started dropping giant ice cubes in the ocean to slow down global warming. Now, Futurama is a show where science is a mixed bag:...
2
votes
5answers
774 views
How good would ice weapons be?
2700: To avoid apocalypse by global warming, a powerful nation (probably America) stops the Gulf Stream. This puts Europe into an ice age, and averts the impeding disaster. However, Europe was not ...
6
votes
5answers
355 views
What could you mine from a city squashed by an ice sheet - in a new ice age?
Western civilisation fell over a few centuries ago, because the Earth shifted back into a full on ice age climate. Oh and Skynet kind of happened.
Ice sheets expanded, inexorably rolling over the ...
3
votes
1answer
104 views
Stopping Glaciers and Colonizing a Super Antarctica
In my World , an Antarctic-like region is slowly growing, as the world gets colder and glaciers from the north expand , destroying all structures in its wake. Even worse , the glacier creeps at an ...
5
votes
3answers
271 views
What kind of catastrophic event would cause the Earth's atmosphere to thin out?
Is a dystopian future with a thinner atmosphere and heavy snow feasible? Also would that mean that snow clouds formed at lower altitudes?
3
votes
2answers
188 views
New York in an Alternate Ice Age
The geographical features that make New York stand out from any other of the United States--Long Island, the huge boulders scattered in the city and the Hudson River, deep enough for barges to pass ...
0
votes
1answer
145 views
Would towing icebergs to drought stricken countries be feasible? [closed]
It seems a simple solution to the world's water problems if it were feasible. What Would be entailed for such a monumental task, if say, the iceberg was 100 tons, and traveling from Greenland to the ...
2
votes
2answers
486 views
Major Mountain Ranges…Minus the Ice [closed]
The most major mountain ranges in the world have proven themselves to be distinctive. This distinctiveness is made possible only by a recent history of being sculpted and resculpted by ice.
Rocky ...
1
vote
2answers
68 views
Animals migrating north from Africa after meteor hit Earth - era of 'ice' [closed]
To eleborate on my question asked here - Light Emitting Animals - What happens to the food chain?
where every animal has evolved / produced a light emitting organ.
Scenario - 200years after my first ...
4
votes
3answers
226 views
The Ice Age Cometh: Global Balance of Power
Oh boy, was Al Gore wrong.
In December 2016, Winter Came. At first, it was called the Snowpocalypse and other cutesy names. The TV presenters in the Northern Hemisphere soon stopped laughing however. ...
-2
votes
1answer
125 views
The Poles, Great Lakes Earth [closed]
There are three major differences that make Great Lakes Earth’s Arctic considerably cooler from our Arctic. First off, compared to our oceans, the Arctic Ocean of Great Lakes Earth seems to have a ...
0
votes
1answer
84 views
The Ice of Eurasia, in Full Detail [closed]
This post is related to both If Britain Had Ice From a Different Direction and Turning the Baltic Sea into the Baltic Plain.
In OTL, the farthest south the ice reached in Europe was close to London. ...
-2
votes
1answer
151 views
If Britain Had Ice From a Different Direction
At the height of the last ice age, glaciers as thick as one mile reached as far down south in Europe as London. This is the reason why England and Wales have very little mountains, and why the ...
0
votes
1answer
115 views
An Earlier Pleistocene = Mass Extinction?
Five million years ago, the warm Miocene gradually descended into the cool Pliocene before dropping into the frigid Pleistocene. Such a change in temperature was so gradual that life went on without a ...
2
votes
5answers
741 views
All fresh water is frozen
If all, or most, fresh water was frozen due to temperature drop over the space of a few generations, what would be the effects on living organisms such as humans and animals?
Take in to consideration ...
10
votes
3answers
639 views
If Earth Were Forged by Fire and Ice
Our Earth first came into existence 4,543,000,000 years ago as an inhospitable ball of molten rock that barely survived a crash from a Mars-sized rogue planet whose impact gave rise to the creation of ...
5
votes
1answer
727 views
How Does Steel React to Ice?
In this alternate scenario, for six to ten years, latitudes as far down south as Chicago experience eight to nine months where the daily high barely reaches zero Fahrenheit (−18 degrees Celsius)....
3
votes
4answers
5k views
Is it possible for the oceans to freeze solid (at least on the surface)?
Can the oceans freeze (at least several feet below sea level)? I know that the temperature for salt water to freeze is lower/colder than fresh water, and when it does freeze, the ice is mostly salt-...
6
votes
6answers
3k views
Is it possible for a planet to be devoid of polar ice caps?
I know water is required for life on a planet so I got to thinking, is it possible for a world to be a functional planet (plants animals etc.) without polar ice caps and if so, how would it work ...
4
votes
3answers
2k views
What would happen if there was no Antarctic Landmass?
I understand that Antarctica plays a large role in driving ocean currents and thus the climate of the planet. However, I'm curious what the world would be like if there was no Antarctic landmass at ...
3
votes
1answer
149 views
If We Push the Ice A Little Further South
Back home, the Pleistocene ice never reached farther south than New York or London. These ice ages had been coming and going for two and a half million years. On average, there was enough ice to ...
2
votes
2answers
141 views
Use ice to climate control settlement
The heat wave that my area is going through got me looking longingly at the ice in my freezer. I understand that leaving the freezer door open does not help cool the house, but it got me thinking...
...
