Alaska Chat II

[Xa'at]

Originally Posted by warptman

I should have bought some chocolate chip cookies at lunch from Subway's, you kids and your cookies...shame on you.

Subway used to have good cookies, but they changed their recipe.

[Barkingowl]

Xa'at are there bars in Juneau that serve drinks over glacial ice?

[warptman]

Barking, one more post til the evil numbers...

[ASpilot2be]

Originally Posted by Xa'at

That recipe was originally developed by a baker named Linda Zagar at the Fiddlehead Café and Bakery downtown. It closed a few years ago, quite unfortunately, but it was an incredible little place. I know the lady who ran it, wonderful lady. They had cookies literally the size of dinner plates! They actually put out a cookbook: Amazon.com: The Fiddlehead Cookbook: Recipes from Alaska's Most Celebrated Restaurant and Bakery: Books: Nancy DeCherney,John DeCherney,Deborah Marshall,Susan Brook
I highly recommend it. I grew up on these recipes.

Has it really been a few years? My how time flies

[Xa'at]

Originally Posted by Barkingowl

Xa'at are there bars in Juneau that serve drinks over glacial ice?

No. Even if there was, trust me, you wouldn't want to drink it. As you know, glaciers move, albeit slowly. They grind over the rock and eventually the ice gets filled with silt.
Notice how opaque the water is?

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by warptman

Barking, one more post til the evil numbers...

I hadn't even noticed. Am I going to go to Hell or do I already live there?

[Barkingowl]

Originally Posted by Xa'at

No. Even if there was, trust me, you wouldn't want to drink it. As you know, glaciers move, albeit slowly. They grind over the rock and eventually the ice gets filled with silt.
Notice how opaque the water is?

Yes, I see. Why is the ice so blue though?

[warptman]

What causes the blue color that sometimes appears in snow and ice? As with water, this color is caused both by the absorption of red and yellow light (leaving blue). The absorption spectrum of ice is similar to that of the liquid except that hydrogen bonding causes all peaks to shift to lower energy -- making the color greener. This affect is augmented by scattering within snow, which causes the light to travel an indirect path, thus providing more opportunity for absorption.

From the surface, snow and ice present us with a uniformly white face. This is because most all of the visible light striking the snow or ice surface is reflected back without any particular preference for a single color within the visible spectrum. The situation is different for that portion of the light which is not reflected but penetrates or is transmitted into the snow. As this light travels into the snow or ice, the ice grains scatter a large amount of light. If the light is to travel over any distance it must survive many such scattering events, that is it must keep scattering and not be absorbed. The observer usually sees the light coming back from the near surface layers (less than 1 cm) after it has been scattered or bounced off other snow grains only a few times and it still appears white.

[Xa'at]

Originally Posted by Barkingowl

Yes, I see. Why is the ice so blue though?

It's more dense than normal ice, so it absorbs all the colors of the spectrum but blue, which it reflects.

[warptman]

Deeper in the snow, the preferential absorption of red begins to become noticeable. Just like with water, more red light is absorbed compared to blue. Not much more, but enough that over a considerable distance, say a meter or more, photons emerging from the snow layer tend to be made up of more blue light than red light. Typical examples are poking a hole in the snow and looking down into the hole to see blue light or the blue color associated with the depths of crevasses in glaciers. In each case the blue light is the product of a relatively long travel path through the snow or ice. So the spectral selection is related to absorption, and not reflection as is sometimes thought. In simplest of terms, think of the ice or snow layer as a filter. If it is only a centimeter thick, all the light makes it through, but if it is a meter thick, mostly blue light makes it through. This is similar to how coffee often appears light colored when poured, but appears much darker when it is in a cup.

Does glacier ice last longer in drinks? Yes, a little, because the ice crystals are larger. Crystals melt from the outside and large crystals expose less surface area per unit volume of ice; therefore, ice with larger crystals melts more slowly.


I feel like User2 now....