Why do glaciers appear blue?

Answer 1

Glaciers act as large crystals and reflect the colors of the sky and to some extent the color of the surrounding waters as well.

The same applies to why polar bears look white when their fur is actually clear - due to its white surroundings.

-Kevin

Answer 2

Blue Glaciers

Answer 3

Why does glacier ice look blue?


Almost all glacier travelers have stared with awe into the brilliant blue depths of an open crevasse. The bright white snow of the surface is a marked contrast to the deep rich blue inside a glacier. But why is ice blue?

Snow is white because full spectrum, or white, light is scattered and reflected at the boundary between ice and air. The white color of bubbles at the top of a dark beer work the same way—small pockets of air reflect and scatter visible light. Ice only appears blue when it is sufficiently consolidated that bubbles do not interfere with the passage of light. Without the scattering effect of air bubbles, light can penetrate ice undisturbed. In ice, the absorption of light at the red end of the spectrum is six times greater than at the blue end. Thus the deeper light energy travels, the more photons from the red end of the spectrum it loses along the way. Two meters into the glacier, most of the reds are dead. A lack of reflected red wavelengths produces the color blue in the human eye.

http://www.carleton.edu/departments/GEOL/Links/AlumContributions/blueice/blue.html

Glacier ice is often a deep blue color. This is because of how the sunlight passes through the ice and what happens to the sunlight. Sunlight looks white. The light is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow. Each of the sun's colors have different amounts of energy in them. When the sunlight tries to go through the solid glacier ice crystals the sun gets broken up into lots of colors. Red and yellow have very little energy and the thick ice soaks up the red light more than it soaks up the blue light. The blue light has enough extra energy to get away from the solid ice crystals without getting absorbed or soaked up. This is why the only color people see is the blue color that escaped. The blue light has enough energy to escape the ice so that you can see it. That is why glacial ice is often a deep blue color.



Some glaciers do not look blue to people. If the glacier has a lot of air bubbles inside the ice crystals, the white sunlight gets reflected not soaked up. If the sunlight can get through the ice without all the rainbow colors getting scattered and soaked up, the ice will look white.

Glaciers get soil, rocks, snow and dirt mixed up with the ice. Then the ice can look a dirty gray color.

By Josh H. and Zack

EXPERIMENT: Make your own sunlight rainbow of colors by using a prism. Put the prism in the sunlight Move the prism in the sunlight so that the sun's rays hit it. Move the prism around until the sunlight hits it just right and a rainbow shows up on a white sheet of paper. You can trace the colors with colored pencils.

Answer 4

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.

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.

Answer 5

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Why do glaciers appear blue?

Answer 6

For the same reason the sky looks blue. It has to do with refraction of light.

Answer 7

the reflection & shimmer of the water on the ice?