Do any rivers freeze from the bottom up?

Clearwater River freezes in a unique way Alaskan rivers also have the phenomenon, but for a different reason. Alaskan rivers freeze from the bottom up due to the permafrost. The Clearwater freezes from the bottom up in places where basalt is exposed.



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Under current climatic conditions, small rivers can freeze throughout: from bank to bank, surface to river bed.

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If water were most dense as a solid, lakes would freeze from the bottom up, eventually freezing solid. In that case, little or nothing would survive in the lake. Most lakes and ponds don't completely freeze because the ice (and eventually snow) on the surface acts to insulate the water below.

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Do fish die in frozen lakes or in lakes that are partially frozen? Since fish are cold-blooded animals, they can survive because they are able to regulate their body temperature to match their environment. However, they could die if a body of water freezes over completely and remains frozen for an extended period.

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The answer again lies in physics. For any stream of moving water to freeze, it takes more than a simple drop in temperature. Heat must be lost at a rate that exceeds the rate of replacement: the rate at which flowing water is replaced by water of potentially higher temperatures upstream.

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The winter of 1917-1918 was one of the worst on record when the Ohio River froze along its entire length. The ice gorge crushed and sank the Princess, one of the passenger steamboats to Coney Island. Folks have fresher memories of when the Ohio River froze during the 1976-1977 and 1977-1978 winters.

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The high concentration of salt in ocean water lowers its freezing point from 32° F (0° C) to 28° F (-2° C). As a result, the ambient temperature must reach a lower point in order to freeze the ocean than to freeze freshwater lakes.

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Fresh water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit but seawater freezes at about 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit , because of the salt in it.

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Since water is good at holding heat, the more water there is, the more heat it will hold. This is why large deep lakes take longer freeze and melt than small shallow lakes.

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Lake ice freezes first at the surface starting at the edges or shoreline for two reasons. Water near the shore is typically shallower and contains less heat than deeper water so it can reach the freezing point faster than deeper water.

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Glaciers are called rivers of ice. Just like rivers, glaciers have fall lines where the bed of the glacier gets narrow or descends rapidly. Ice flows down the icefall just like water falls down a waterfall.

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