"Jeff Shirton" wrote

Sorry, but wrong.

You seem to be basing your argument on "the freezing point of water is
32",
and assuming that this means that any H2O at 32 will be solid "frozen".

However, it is equally true that "the melting point of water is 32", which
means that when solid water gets to 32 degrees, it melts (at that temp.)
and becomes water (at that temp.)

True. It actually needs to get sligtly below 32.0 to freeze.


But wait... This means that I'm trying to say that water can be both
solid *and* liquid at 32 F? Yes, definitely. It's a trick chemists use
all the time, as a mixture of ice and water will maintain a constant
temp. (of 32, both the ice and the water) until all of the ice melts.

You have a body of water at 32.0 F. If you remove sufficient heat,
it cools to ICE at 32.0 F. The heat lost to change a substance
from liquid at the freezing point to solid AT THE SAME TEMP
is called the "latent heat of fusion". But the point is that during
the change of state, the temperature does not change. The temperature
remains the same.

That is to say, once water reaches the freezing point, it doesn't
"instantly" change to ice. More heat is needed to be released
until it to solidify, and the latent heat of fusion is *much* more
than the heat needed to be lost to reduce temp.

True, but that has nothing to do with the water temperature. It takes
longer, but that was not part of the arguement. We were dealing with temp
only, not how long it takes, or how much energy has to change hands.

Actually, wave action is kinetic energy. And so a body of
water with wave action will contain more energy than a
stagnant body of water, and so more energy will be needed
to be lost for it to freeze.

The amount of kinetic energy in the waves, again is not the issue. Not
time, only temperature. When it goes below freezing, it freezes. I don't
give a rat's a** how much energy has to change hands to get to the
temperature. All we were talking about was the final result; measure the
temperature. The end observation is all we were talking about.

Besides, the amount of kinetic energy in waves compared to the energy
exchange to freeze water is negligible. It could be argued that the waves
actually help the water to cool more rapidly, due to the spray evaporating,
and cooling the water by changing states from liquid to vapor.
--
Jim in NC