Oceans stay liquid even when it’s cold outside because they have a special kind of warmth inside them.
Imagine you're wearing a thick blanket on a chilly day, that keeps you warm, right? The ocean is like that blanket. It has a lot of water in it, and water holds heat really well. Even when the air gets super cold, the ocean doesn’t let go of its warmth so fast.
Like a Slow Melting Ice Cube
Think about an ice cube in your drink. At first, it’s all frozen, but as time goes on, it slowly starts to melt. The ocean is like that ice cube, it takes a long time for the whole thing to freeze because there's so much water holding onto its heat.
Also, the ocean is really deep, and deeper parts are even warmer. So even if the top gets cold, the bottom stays warm enough to keep everything from freezing all over.
Sometimes, we can see ice on the surface of the ocean, like in the Arctic, but that’s just a little bit of it. The rest is still liquid underneath!
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See also
- How Does a Battery Work?
- Why Do We Yawn When We're Tired?
- Why Do We Have Different Seasons?
- What Causes the Tides Exactly?
- What Causes a Volcano to Erupt?