How Salt Melts Ice Without Warming It

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]Salt's can melt the ice below, though temperatures stays just so. Ice and water meet at 0° [singing] in balance molecule to molecule they freeze. Some break >> [music] >> loose and drift away. Some return without delay. [music and singing] So nothing changes on the ground. The freezing balance stays tightly bound.

[00:00:28]But scatter salt [music] across the ice, it dissolves where water lies. Forms a thin layer of brine, lowering [music] the freezing line. As salt water needs colder air, often 10° [music] below there, so though the air may be 0 below, the brine [music] remains a liquid flow. The salt spreads deeper through the ice, turning frozen sheets to brine. So salt [music] does not make warm spread, [singing] it lowers water's freezing point instead. Hey!