Mathematics and climate change: Gaining insights into the nature of sea ice

In 1994, University of Utah mathematician Ken Golden went to the Eastern Weddell Sea for the Antarctic Zone Flux Experiment. The sea's surface is normally covered with sea ice, the complex composite material that results when sea water is frozen. During a powerful winter storm, Golden observed liquid sea water welling up and flooding the sea ice surface, producing a slushy mixture of sea water and snow that freezes into snow-ice. With his mathematician's eyes he observed this phenomenon and said to himself: "That's percolation!"

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