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J Martin: Is the Arctic displaying the Mpemba effect?

Saturday, October 20, 2012 8:30

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From the Suggestions page, contributor J. Martin writes:

I wonder if other people have any views on the idea that the Mpemba effect might also come into play in Arctic Antarctic behaviour ? I would welcome a discussion on this subject.

Mpemba effect ?

The increased ice melt which is largely driven by warmer Arctic currents, then re-freezes at a faster rate. Are we seeing the Mpemba effect in action here ?

Whilst we have figures for Arctic air temperature and graphs for sea ice extent and area, we seem to lack data for Arctic water temperatures to allow a fuller discussion of future Arctic behaviour.

With warmer Arctic currents set against a background of solar cooling we may see wider oscillation between record low ice extent in summer and increasing (perhaps record) ice extent in winter.

The Mpemba effect is where warmer water will freeze before the same amount of cooler water. An experiment easily carried out at home, and one for which it is claimed that no scientist has yet satisfactorily explained.

From Wikipedia;

The effect is named after Tanzanian Erasto Mpemba. He first encountered the phenomenon in 1963 in Form 3 of Magamba Secondary School, Tanganyika when freezing ice cream mix that was hot in cookery classes and noticing that they froze before cold mixes. After passing his O-level examinations, he became a student at Mkwawa Secondary (formerly High) School, Iringa, Tanzania. The headmaster invited Dr. Denis G. Osborne from the University College in Dar Es Salaam to give a lecture on physics. After the lecture, Erasto Mpemba asked him the question “If you take two similar containers with equal volumes of water, one at 35 °C (95 °F) and the other at 100 °C (212 °F), and put them into a freezer, the one that started at 100 °C (212 °F) freezes first. Why?” only to be ridiculed by his classmates and teacher. After initial consternation, Dr. Osborne experimented on the issue back at his workplace and confirmed Mpemba’s finding. They published the results together in 1969.[4]

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I’m running a test now, and will update the thread in an hour.