Why is frozen water white in snow, but clear in ice?
95097
If you look at an individual snowflake you will find that the frozen water it contains is quite clear. It is only snow in drifts that looks white. Why? Because snow in drifts is  made up of millions of tiny pieces of ice.\n\n\nEvery time light passes from one substance to another rit changes direction. So when you see something underwater it looks like it’s in a different place to where it is because the light has changed direction moving from the water to the air.\n\nWhen light changes direction like that it also gets split up into different colours  a bit, just like if it had passed through a prism.  It isn’t split as completely as if it has passed through a prism, but the blue light gets split out just a bit more than the red. And every time it changes direction it gets split more and more.\n\n\nWhen light passes through a snow drift it will change direction every single time it shines into every individual snowflake. So light shining on a snowdrift changes direction millions of times. And every time it changes direction it gets split up a bit more. By the time it has shone right through the drift it has changed direction so many times that it has completely split into all the separate colours.\n\nWhen your eyes see an object that is producing light in al the different colours at once it registers that as white. And because the light shining through a snowdrift been split into all the different colours the snow becomes white.\n\nIce on a stream or lake on the other hand is a single block, not millions of pieces like a snowdrift. When light shines through a block of ice it changes direction just twice: once when it enters the ice and once when it leaves it. It doesn’t change direction often enough to get split up very much, so the light coming though looks normal, and not white. The ice appears clear.
1080113
The white is the color that is reflected to our eyes when it reflects off a pack of snow.  As snow accumulates there are millions of surfaces that this light can reflect from.  You can not see through the snow even though it is frozen water because of this.  \n\nIf you look through a microscope at one snow flake it is pretty transparent but not completely.  That is because the amount of reflective surfaces are only a few and going in only a few directions.
1036867
Of course ice and water are chemically identical consisting of H2O.  The two hydrogen atoms attach to the oxygen atom other than in a straight line (not like beads on a string).  The electron field surrounding the water molecule is uneven providing it with a "polarity" that makes it much easier to pack many molecules together in a given (rather than arbitrary) arrangement.  When water is a vapor (or steam) there is so much vibrational energy that the molecules bounce off each other maintaining a "pressure" depending on their energy (temperature).  When the molecules are a liquid, they are very closely packed and are nearly incompressible (even seven miles below the surface of the ocean!).  The bulk water expands and contracts only a little with temperature changes.  When heat is removed from the water (in a freezer?) the molecules are attracted to each other in a preferred array due to polarity and form long chains of molecules that use up space far less efficiently.  The "ice" is less dense and floats on water because the space between chains is filled with a vacuum or gases that weigh very little.  When the water is allowed to freeze in open space (a cloud?) the polarity is free to align water molecules in the most preferred orientation; a six sided snow flake.  When hoar frost forms on a cold window pane the ice forms in dendrites, like growing Christmas trees.  Hope that helps a little.
392443
That is an interesting question.  What is snow made of?\nWater, right? Except it is water frozen in a special\nway, by accretion of little bits as the snowflake\ndrops through the atmosphere, so that snow is pretty\nrandom stuff, compared to ice which is also frozen\nwater, but which has all the water molecules nicely\nlined up which makes it transparent.  The randomness\nof snow means that when light strikes the snow it\ngets scattered in all directions, and all colors are\njumbled up, so when you look at snow all you see is\nthe jumble, which shows up as white light.  When\nit melts, it just turns into water (and usually\ndisappears into the ground) which does not have the\nkind of randomness snow has at the level of the\nwavelengths of visible light.  (Visible light\nhas wavelengths much longer than the size of molecules).\nSo, the "white" did not really exist on its own -\nit was a property of the arrangement of the water molecules\nin snow, and disappears as soon as that arrangement is\nchanged.\n\nDoes this help?
338330
The answer to this is made tougher by the fact that the water will be freezing.  I mean how can you answer a question where the water is ice cold and use the data provided at STP?  Think you need to either re-read your question or provide a little more info.
260171
It isn't air! When water freezes all dissolved gases & other matter are not included!!! \n\nThe hydrogen bonds that form when water freezes creates an open structure. There is simply nothing in between those spaces.\n\nWe are talking about molecular structure, things at this level are so tiny that even thinking about what is in between is silly.\n\nIf there is anything between the spaces it is probably interstitial water molecules (those not hydrogen bonded inside the crystalline lattice structure - think of them as loose molecules of water).\n\nIce floats on water because it has expanded. That is all. Not because of what is in between the "spaces".\n\nSee, when you increase the surface area but have the same number of molecules present, you cause the object to become less dense. (it's less tightly packed...things that are tightly packed for their size are said to be more dense.)
21452
Snow is actually clear like ice in a tray. Snow is simply a smaller version of that. It only appears white because of its small particles of ice and light reflection. there is always light reflecting even at night so the snow will still appear to be white.
307502
well you know its ice melting, ice is white cos its reflecting all the colors in the sun's light rays. If it absorbed those then snow would be black.\n\nbut if you already knew that, then the real answer is the snow queen takes the white away when the snow melts and uses it to paint her castle.
761955
Blue ice occurs when snow falls on a glacier, is compressed, and becomes part of a glacier that winds its way toward a body of water (river, lake, ocean, etc.). During its travels, all of the air bubbles that are trapped in the ice are squeezed out, and the size of the ice crystals increases, making it clear.\n\nThe blue color is often wrongly attributed to Rayleigh scattering. Actually, the ice is blue for the same reason water is blue. Namely, it is a result of an overtone of a OH molecular stretch in the water which absorbs light at the red end of the visible spectrum.\n\n\nCarbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. It is often referred to by its formula CO2. It is present in the Earth's atmosphere at a low concentration and acts as a greenhouse gas. In its solid state, it is called DRY ICE . It is a major component of the carbon cycle.
500353
sud is composed of very tiny bubbles of soap, which diffract light in all different directions, the light rays interfere and give rise to all colours, which produces white light. for the same reason snow is white, not by tiny bubbles, but by tiny crystals.
685263
as you know the density of ice and water is slightly different.\n\nmultiply the height by the ratio of densities, i.e. density of water/density of snow.\n\nIce has a density of 0.917 g/cm³ at 0 °C, whereas water has a density of 0.9998 g/cm³ at the same temperature
215770
depends on the ice...\n\nmany different types of ice in different states of being 'frozen' and at different temperatures and with\ndifferent degrees of purity of the water or other frozen substance...\n\nthe answer would be yes more often than no...
167688
Imagine two big grounds , wherein one ground a big crowd gathered to hear the speach of a politician. Here each person will be moving randomly.And in the second ground same number of military men assembled for parade and standing and moving in a specified pattern.\nIf two men run through the two fields to the other side of the field, only the man running through the military men can easily reach the other end.This is because they are arranged in a certain pattern.\nIn the same way, ice cubes are traslucent because ice cubes are crystals and in crystals molicules are arranged in a definite pattern, hence it allows the light to enter and a few of light to pass through it.When this cube crushed, most of the light is reflected back, hence it appears white.
25339
Air temperature may be several degrees warmer than ice surface temperature. Light, including infrared or warmth, is reflected from white surfaces.\n\nThe surface of the ice will melt, slowly, during the day, but it will freeze again over night. That's one of the reasons why a snow field slowly turns into ice.
268388
All water freezes at some temperature. However, pure water can be supercooled below its freezing point if you don't give the ice anything to nucleate around. It will then homogeneously freeze (to very clear ice) below a certain temperature though.
288151
Temps close to the freezing point. If you have noticed often when rain is changing to snow quickly,the flakes at times are huge!
157510
Clear means it can be seen through. In chemistry this is a distinction from 'opaque', 'cloudy' or 'turbid' meaining that the substanbce can't be readily seen through. \n\nColourless means just what it says: it lacks colour.\n\nTo illustrate, pure water is clear. If you add a single drop of milk or a few drops of kerosene and shake it up the water becomes cloudy. \n\nWater with a drop of food colouring added is clear. You can see right through it. But it can still be bright red or green despite remaining clear. It sure isn't colourless but it is definitley clear.