Stunning 'shuga' ice floes form on Warsaw's river
These stunning ice floes are known as 'shuga'
LOCATION: Warsaw, Poland
(SOUNDBITE) (Polish) HYDROLOGIST AT POLAND'S NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF METEOROLOGY AND WATER MANAGEMENT, GRZEGORZ WALIJEWSKI, SAYING:"Shuga is a spiky form of ice. It is very glue-like, one can't believe how easy it sticks to literally everything. For shuga to appear, the river water has to freeze. The water temperature has to be below zero degrees Celsius, and - here is a fun fact - this water can have a negative value. So, the water temperature can be minus one degree Celsius. I know it sounds strange because we learned at school that water freezes at zero degrees Celsius, but certain movements within the water allow it to be liquid at minus one degree Celsius."
The ice floes are a common natural phenomenon in Poland
but they have been occurring less frequently
SOUNDBITE) (Polish) HYDROLOGIST AT POLAND'S NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF METEOROLOGY AND WATER MANAGEMENT, GRZEGORZ WALIJEWSKI, SAYING:"In our geographical latitude and longitude, the shuga ice is a quite common phenomenon. It is not abnormal, it is not real news to us."
"However, what is new is the fact that this phenomenon occurs less and less often because of climate change."
