A Sea of Frost Flowers

25 January 2015

Imagine the sight of a vast meadow covered by flowers of ice, overlaying a frozen sea. Beyond one’s imagination, the vision of frost flowers growing on the surface of sea ice is indeed a reality. This truly intriguing natural phenomenon has been one of nature’s most bizarre yet beautiful creations (Figure 1). In general, not many people have any background knowledge of these crystalline flowers and are not aware of their existence and process of formation. Due to their rare appearances, the formation of frost flowers is considered to be a natural phenomenon that shows the effects of climate and temperature in correlation with the environmental conditions of the earth’s atmosphere.

Figure 1: Frost flower crystals forming on the thin sea ice surface of the Arctic Ocean, North Pole (NPR, 2012)

Frost flowers are patches of ice crystals formed on a layer of thin sea ice. With a 3-4 cm diameter, they are usually covered with a layer of seawater and therefore have high salinity concentrations. Due to the fact that they are formed on top of frozen seas, other chemicals such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and bromine monoxide (BrO) are also present in their solid composition (Kaleschke, 2004).

Frost flowers have delicate branched patterns of ice crystals, usually dendritic, formed as the result of a continuous repeating shape or configuration on its frost petals as shown in Figure 2. They thrive on young, thin sea ice in extremely cold yet calm conditions (i.e. Arctic, North Pole), where there is an imbalance in temperature between the atmosphere and the sea ice. Generally, the ideal frost flower growing conditions are when the atmosphere’s temperature is much colder than the underlying ice with temperatures ranging from -22°C to -30°C (Style and Worster, 2009). However, if the sea ice becomes too thick and accumulates more ice, the upper surface of the ice adjusts to the temperature, and cools down melting the ice and prohibiting further growth.

Figure 2: Dendritic pattern on crystallized frost petals (NewScientist, 2009)

On the surface, frost flowers are remarkable creations made by nature but inside, they are much more. It has been found that, by analyzing these frost flowers at the microbiological level, each frost flower houses an abundance of bacteria (Illinois State University, 2004). This idea aims to answer the question, “How are bacteria cells able to survive and thrive in conditions that are not suitable for life, given these salty, intensely cold environments?”. If this is the case, frost flowers may be analogous to current and continuing research regarding the existence of various forms of life in other planets. Thus, frost flowers are not only a fascinating natural phenomenon to observe and study; they may also hold the key to unlock future discoveries to life-based environs in the universe.

References:

Illinois State University, (2004). Ice Flowers Frost Flowers – Ice Segregation in plant stems. [online] Available at: http://my.ilstu.edu/~jrcarter/ice/flowers/ [Accessed 23 Jan. 2015].
Kaleschke, L. (2004). Frost flowers on sea ice as a source of sea salt and their influence on tropospheric halogen chemistry. Geophysical Research Letters, 31(16).
NewScientist, (2009). Mystery of frost flower growth explained – environment. [online] Available at: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17166-mystery-of-frost-flower-growth-explained.html#.VMXDE3B4rLc [Accessed 26 Jan. 2015].
NPR, (2012). Suddenly There’s A Meadow In The Ocean With ‘Flowers’ Everywhere. [online] Available at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/12/17/167469845/suddenly-theres-a-meadow-in-the-ocean-with-flowers-everywhere [Accessed 26 Jan. 2015].
Style, R. and Worster, M. (2009). Frost flower formation on sea ice and lake ice. Geophysical Research Letters, 36(11).

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