Sunday, February 27, 2011

Do Dark Colors Make Snow Melt Faster?


When snow and ice combine to make my steep driveway impossible to drive up, I wait for a sunny day and sprinkle ashes on top of the snow. I’m convinced the dark color of the ashes helps make the snow melt faster (not to mention, give me traction when I try to drive up).

Does color influence the rate of snow melting? You can test this by cutting squares of different colors of felt or construction paper and spreading them over the top of the snow on the next sunny day. After a couple hours compare how deep each color has sunk below the surface.

Do light colors melt the snow as fast as dark colors?
How fast do leaves and twigs and clusters of pine needles melt into the snow?

2 comments:

  1. this experiment sounds awesome! If only I had ashes...

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  2. This is my science project, but im using color dye instead.

    ReplyDelete