Why does river water not freeze?

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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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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