Posted on 01/17/2009 8:52:53 AM PST by gorush
NIEUWERKERK AAN DEN IJSSEL, Netherlands: For the first time in 12 years, the Netherlands' canals froze this month, bringing the Dutch, who like their tulips in neat rows, a heady mix of pandemonium and euphoria.
Hundreds of thousands of skaters, their cheeks as red as apples in the freezing temperatures, took to the ice, and hospital wards were filled with dozens of people with fractured arms, sprained ankles and broken legs.
Train engineers were ordered to go slowly to avoid hitting skaters who clambered across railway tracks to get from one frozen canal to another. Even the minister of defense, an avid skater, fell and broke his wrist. His ministry announced that the national defense remained in safe hands, even if one of them was in a cast.
In the 19th century, when Hans Brinker, the hero of the novel in which he tries to win a pair of silver skates, coasted along Holland's ice, the canals froze almost every year. But water pollution and climate change have made this so rare that today a boy of 15, Brinker's age, may never have seen a frozen canal, or at least remember one. Until, that is, this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Salt water, brackish water and fresh water have different weights per gallon. Maybe that’s what this was about...
I agree that such pollutants in sufficient quantity would affect the freezing point of water. However, I seriously doubt they are present in the (probably) percent level needed to have such an effect.
Most pollutants are measured in the parts per thousand or million which may be sufficient to have significant effect on sensitive life forms. Unlikely to affect the physical characteristics of the water much.
The point made in the headline is that skating on the canals is a very Dutch thing to do. You can go from town to town, drink hot coco, etc. Lots of fun.
I am glad that they are ‘discovering’ this again, after their country has been accommodating the muzzies in every facet of daily life, this is refreshing, and a first step in reversing the process.
And apparently to a few others.
Oh, haven’t you heard? The global warming crowd are saying that it is global warming that has caused the cold snap. You see, anthropogenic climate change works in both directions. That way they can claim that any change in climate is caused by man, and since the only thing that we know for sure about climate is that it changes, they have it all covered.
I guess that’s humanist logic, Unitarian belief.
Wanna bet birth rates are going to go through the roof also?
&&&
A good thing unless we’re talking about the mohammedans there.
One of my son-in-law’s heating pipes, down the road from us, froze up the night before last. And that was after he repaired the basement wall last summer and had insulation sprayed around the tops of the walls.
He’s waiting to see what happens when it thaws. Hopefully any flooding will be confined to the basement.
...I am glad that they are ‘discovering’ this again,....
***
Now, if they would only rediscover their religious roots....
Yes and you had better believe you don’t see any mohammedans on the ice. The women would literally be breaking their necks in those burkas.
one of my favorite books.
...heat perhaps due to chemical reactions? How’s that sound?
Al Gore would say the Dutch are suffering from false consciousness.
Your canal's not frozen. That must be evidence of global warming. < / s>
Seriously though, if a woman told me that her canal was frozen I'd head in the other direction... ;^)
ha
burka skatewear on the horizon?
Ah, yes! Fifteen years being such a tremendous span of geologic time.
Add any Ion to water and you will get a...
... Boiling point elevation
... Freezing point depression
So if they had salt water in their canals, that would lower the freezing point.
..... DT = i Kb m
Dutch ping!
From the article:
With an influx of immigrants, the country has been struggling to maintain what it considers its Dutch soul, and Gustafsson was one of many here who thought the skating experience enabled the Dutch to reconnect with their identity. "There were only Dutch people on the ice," he said. "I saw no people of Arab descent."
Evidently, no one told the Arabs about it.
The canals in the Central Valley aren’t frozen either, and neither are the rivers. Back to the drawing board.
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