Looking a bit like a cluster of frozen cowpats , particular “ glass pancakes ” seem on the River Bladnock , Scotland , after a sudden drop in temperature across the UK this month .
Project manager for the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative ( SISI ) Callum Sinclair break down the trope of these strange disks on December 9 , sharing them to Twitter along with a picture of them floating across theicyriver .
The UK ’s recent cold piece of cake saw most of the nation experiencingbelow - freezing conditions , withDecember 12being the coldest Clarence Shepard Day Jr. in the UK since 2010 . The low temperature was -17.3 degrees Celsius ( 0.8 Fahrenheit ) in Braemar , Scotland .
The sudden cliff in temperature is opine to have caused the unusual phenomenon , and write up of similar sightings on a river near Glasgow and in the Lake District , Northwest England , suggest the formations could be occurring in other parting of the UK .
With each disc growing to between20 and 200 centimeters(8 - 79 inches ) , this unusual phenomenon is rarely found in the UK.Ice pancakesusually configuration in the Baltic Sea and aroundAntarctica , but they can sometimes be launch floating on the Great Lakes in the US and Canada .
The disks can form as a resultant role of two very distinct set of conditions . They can either be created by waves forming musical composition of trash that knock against each other in choppy weewee , forming round boundary and slow growing . The rims around the border of the ice battercake are spring when lapping urine join the rim of the already frozen magnetic disk and freeze to form an additional ring layer .
In the calm weather condition of a river , however , they ’re mold when foam on the river surface begins to freeze . The frozen masses begin to join together and get sucked into a swirling current , call an Mary Morse Baker Eddy , causing them to form these orbitual shapes . They continue to arise as smaller bits of ice bump off the disks and immobilize to the out lip .
Despite looking like self-coloured , fixed disk , sparkler flapcake are often surprisingly slushy and brickle . In the right conditions , the disks will commence to consolidate forming flat solid crank , and when the water is choppy this sheet ice can bend to make ice ridge .
