Professor Stephen Morris of the University of Toronto calls himself the ‘icicle whisperer’. He set out to understand why icicles form like they do, growing hundreds of icicles in controlled lab conditions. The end result? The Icicle Atlas – a giant online repository of 237,000 pictures, time-lapse videos and icicle-growing data. Morris hasn’t unlocked all the icicle’s secrets yet, but he’s worked out that the characteristic ripples that are formed are the result of impurities in the water; but the ripples don’t vary depending on the type or amount of impurities.
The team also discovered that icicles grew fastest when conditions were coldest (minus 20C was the coldest point they studied), when they received air motion from blowing fans and had a low water-drip rate.
As for variations in form, the team found the icicles grew “legs” — or multiple tips — when the air was still, meaning fans were turned off, he said.
The icicles reached a maximum 65 centimetres in length, constrained by the size of the box. Most were grown when temperature was set to minus 12C over the course of two to 12 hours.
Each icicle’s progress was captured in about 1,000 images snapped as the wooden pivot point rotated.
Picture Credit : Google