Why do we stick to ice?

Chris Smith answered this question...

Chris - I've had a nasty experience because I used to work in a lab where we had lots of -70 (degrees Centigrade) freezers. We used to develop various gels and things in those -70 freezers. If you weren't careful and didn't put some gloves on when you went into the freezer and grabbed your developer out, then your skin could freeze onto the rack. When you removed your fingers and let go then it left a lovely fingerprint on the thing. That quite literally was a fingerprint, because it left the surface layers of skin from your finger!

The reason ice is sticky is for that very reason. Ice itself is so cold, if you touch it with skin - because your body secretes tiny amounts of liquid, sweat, which is a salty fluid onto your skin surface - it actually makes your skin stickier. This is why we have it. It's for grip. If you then touch that onto a very cold ice surface the ice then re-freezes the liquid on your finger.

Because that liquid is a fluid and it has got into all the nooks and crannies on your finger, it then freezes solid and will form a very tight bond between your finger and the frozen surface, the ice. You get stuck to the surface.

If it's an ice cube - if it's okay because there's enough heat flowing through your fingers (usually to re-melt that transient freezing) - then you can detach yourself. In the case of a -70 freezer or even colder, people in the Antarctic have to be very careful about this kind of thing - it doesn't warm up enough and you can end up permanently frozen to the surface or you can do quite a bad injury.

年代o that's why ice is sticky. You get literally frozen to the spot!