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Appreciating the gifts of the season

In this mid-January time of year we are either enjoying outdoor winter activities or holed up inside the house under three sweaters and eight blankets. Some people aren’t made for cold temperatures (me) and some people love them (my husband).

There is always something new and exciting to appreciate with every season in Northeast Michigan. Some people cringe at the sound of money falling out of their pockets every time their furnace kicks on, and some look forward to that first good blizzard that turns everything into and outdoor winter theme park.

Regardless of where you sit on the winter lover’s spectrum, one thing cannot be denied. The Alpena area is beautiful any time of year. Winter is no exception.

It seems that each year brings a new perspective or a new natural phenomenon into focus. One year it was ice caves, another year it was ice covered tees, a different year it was massive snow drifts. This year the stunning beauty is the blue ice along the Lake Huron shoreline.

Why does the ice appear to be blue? For much the same reason that large bodies of water appear to be blue but small amount of water (in a glass) appear clear. According to science, a blue color is sometimes mistakenly attributed to the color of the sky, which is Rayleigh scattering (the scattering of light through the earth’s electromagnetic field).

Taken from Charles Braun’s book “Why is Water Blue?,” ice is blue for the same reason that large quantities of water are blue: it is a result of an overtone of an oxygen-hydrogen bond stretch in water which absorbs light at the red end of the visible spectrum. Remember the colors of the rainbow (ROY G. BIV: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet)?

In our Great Lakes, some of the light, hitting the surface of water, is reflected back directly but most of it penetrates the surface interacting with water molecules. The water molecule can vibrate in different modes when light hits it. The red, orange, yellow, and green wavelengths of light are absorbed and the remaining light is a collection of the shorter wavelengths of blue and violet. This is the main reason why the ocean is blue.

So, water owes its intrinsic blueness to selective absorption in the red part of its visible spectrum. This is the glass of tap water vs. Lake Huron. Ice that has fewer air pockets has greater density, allowing for different absorption characteristics when light hits it, thus making it look blue.

Has this ever happened before to this great extent? Surely it has but not in my recent memory and others agree that it is a special treat to walk along Bay View Park’s shoreline to see the beautiful dense blue ice for themselves. So whether or not you like the winter weather; each new season in Northeast Michigan offers a new adventure to explore and appreciate the natural beauty of our environment.

Have you seen the blue ice? It is worth the effort to bundle up and head to the shoreline for a look. We are so fortunate to be so close to this Great Lake that provides us with endless natural wonders. Just make sure you don’t get too adventurous and fall in the open water!

Mary Beth Stutzman’s Inspiring A-Town runs bi-weekly on Tuesdays. Follow Mary Beth on Twitter @mbstutz.

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