Ice Shelf
/The skylight in the roof of our cover deck slopes enough that the snow and ice it accumulates acts like a mini-glacier as it melts. Over the past few days, our part of Maryland stayed cold with melting occurring with the sunshine even as the temperature stayed below freezing. And then everything re-froze overnight. The snow was icy and dense rather than fluffy because the majority fell as sleet….and as it began to slide down the slippery slope of the skylight, an ice sheet formed.
Did the icicles that formed at its edge provide any support?
It lasted for more than 24 hours with the re-freezing overnight although there was a noticeable erosion of the ice closest to the skylight housing during the first exposure to sunshine.
I watched it all morning the second day as the sun came up and the skylight began to get full sun as the morning progressed. About noon – the shelf cracked (I heard it rather than saw it)…slid down the rest of the roof and gutter and crashed to the deck below….shattering on impact.
It was awesome to watch this small model of glacier and ice shelf behavior --- think about how the process would translate to a larger scale and longer duration in the Antarctic.
