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112- Why Is Water Blue? The Science of Color in Lakes, Oceans, and Ice
Why is Lake Superior almost black on a stormy day and impossibly blue on a calm one? Why does the Caribbean look turquoise when it's made of the same H2O? And what's happening when glacier ice glows that eerie deep blue inside a crevasse? Water doesn't have a color the way a cardinal has red feathers. What we see when we look at water is physics in action — selective absorption, light scattering, depth, biology, and the geometry of the sun. In this episode we break down exactly how it works.
Why Pure Water Is Blue at All
Water molecules absorb light selectively. They absorb energy at the red…
The skinny
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