Michael O’Donnell

A.P. BIO

August 26, 2009

Q: What would the effects be for aquatic life if the density of ice were greater than
that of liquid water? What would be the impact on terrestrial organisms?

If ice were denser than water the impact on aquatic life would be life would
be great. First of all it would kill all aquatic life. Secondly, it would cause less oxygen
to be made.

Ice is denser than water because of the property of hydrogen bonds that
water takes on. The hydrogen bonds adjust to hold the negatively charged oxygen
atoms apart from eachother. This causes the ice to expand and take on a lattice
type structure. This structure causes ice to expand. With the same mass but a
greater volume ice becomes lighter than water. Ice is about 9% less dense than
water and therefore is about 9% lighter.

The reason all aquatic life would die is that when water would freeze it would
mean that it would sink. This would result in the ice all gathering at the bottom of a
body of water and filling up to the top with ice. This would freeze all the fish and
other aquatic species for a long period of time with no chance of survival. It would
also cause the water to thaw very slowly from the top to bottom. This would create
an environment that no living thing could survive in.

If ice were denser than water it would also create a problem with the amount
of oxygen that is in the air. The world is made up of approximately 75 percent
ocean, and in the ocean there are a lot of algae and plants that through
photosynthesis they use carbon-dioxide and give off oxygen as a product. This
oxygen is what helps us and all other land animals to breath. Therefore, if oceans
froze over there would be less oxygen for humans to breathe because there would
be no plant life in the waters of the oceans. The result of less oxygen would either
be that people would die or we would be a smaller species.