Thank you. You are, as always, correct. Sublimation is not a chemical process, particularly for someone who is a chemistry professor. I think your post is the first time the word ‘thermodynamic’ has been posted on my blog. Thanks.

Cheers

Carl

Thanks for dropping by, buddy. You’re sure getting a lot of mileage out of the word ‘nefarious’ lately.

Funny you mentioned the “Alaska quiet”. I’ve been working on a little thing I want to put in my book about silence and stillness, in the Alaska winter. it’s really something else - an incredibly powerful thing. That said, yeah, I’m keen for the summer. I have some really cool trips lined up, and can’t wait to hit the highcountry. Come on up!

Hey Pete

That’s a bummer about the camera and lens not being with you when you saw the wolf. Ain’t it always that way? Bummer. Still, a treat to see one, for sure. Hell, I got excited when I saw fresh wolf tracks in the snow last week.

Hey Beth,

I’ve never heard the term ’spring mist’. You’re not that far off though.

Hey Ron,

It doesn’t count if you get the answers to my quiz from the news!

To all - actually, the haze is a combination of things. As Ron suggested, here in the Anchorage area it’s largely (apparently) a function of dust from a SANDSTORM all the way west in the Gobi desert, and SMOKE from fires in Russia. But over in the Wrangells a few days ago, it was also a function of SUBLIMATION. So what’s ’sublimation’, I hear you ask? Well, I’ll tell you:

Sublimation is the term given to the chemical process of an element or compound moving from a solid state to a gaseous state. In a very simple explanation, it’s like evaporation, but evaporation is a liquid to a gas, water evaporates, right? Well the snow sublimates to gas, and with a few days of clear sunny skies and long warm days, massive amounts of snow turns to vapor, relatively quickly, and that is the haze we were seeing over in the park a few days ago. Snowflakes and frost are the opposite of sublimation, when water vapor changes directly into a solid state (ice) - called ‘deposition’.

For a great example of sublimation, think about ‘dry ice’ - the ‘fog’ that surrounds it is a mixture of carbon dioxide gas and cold humid air as the dry ice sublimates. In the mountains, at high altitude, with low air pressure, low relative humidity and dry (particularly warm) winds, and intense sunlight will cause sublimation of the snow - you often see it as wind blown snow off mountain peaks, but it’s not really wind blowing snow - it’s sublimation (well, sometimes it IS wind blown snow, but often sublimation is inaccurately labeled wind blown snow.

The famous ‘Chinook Winds” are a contributor to sublimation - warm westerlies, low in moisture, coming in off the Pacific, crossing high mountains like the Rockies, they’ll hit a snowpack, and the frozen H2) turns directly to vapor without melting. Heat is an integral element (the energy component) and it comes from both the wind and the sunlight. Sublimation.

We have a few scientists on board this blog from time to time, they should’ve known this. Tsk tsk tsk.

Cheers

Carl

How are you? Great to hear from you. Eight and a half is a great age to come to Alaska - no need to wait until you grow bigger. I’m 39 and a quarter, and I wish I’d got here years ago. Mum told me you watched “Into the Wild”. Did you like it?

Love

Carl

I like the photo of the swan on the lake
I watched ‘Into the Wild’ last night with your mum and dad
I am 8 and a half now and want to go to Alaska when I grow bigger

Love connor booker

Poor Swan!

I heard the haze was really bad in Seward. A friend there told me it was a combination of fires in Russia a huge dust strom originating from the Gobi Desert.

Cheers Bud,

Ron

Hey man, my theory about leaving the big lens behind works (for me anyway). I was out on a small lake down the road by my place yesterday, and came across a lone wolf (nicely posing for a minute or so on the lake ice about 150 feet away … and of course, the evening light was pretty sweet). My camera & big lenses were safely stowed in the closet at home.

Is that steam fog or something more nefarious?
I’m enjoying catching up on your musings. I could sure use some of that quiet wild Alaska time right about now (well, right about any time, to be honest). I’m sure the months ahead will result in some amazing moments, experiences, and image as the world comes out of hibernation.

Live it up, man!

Guy