why are ice cubes cold???
340650
Because that is what man has determined an ice cube feels like.
694958
Under normal curcumstances when water is cooled, it will form ice at its freezing point.  That is crystallisation takes place and an ice cube is formed.  If now the liquid is cooled past its freezing point without crystallisation taking place, a glassy substance is formed.\n\nWe can also cool saturated solution, without crystalllisation taking place to form a super saturated solution.  This is super cooling.
372400
Automatic defrosters remove ice through sublimation.  The ice-cubes actually get smaller;  they do not come through the process unscathed.
162986
We typed "how does salt melt ice" into the Yahoo! Search box and were soon traveling the well-worn path to How Stuff Works. \nThere we learned that the answer has to do with melting points. Most people know that water freezes at a temperature of 32°Fahrenheit (0°Celsius). Salt dissolves fairly rapidly in ice, lowering its freezing point in an effect known as freezing point depression, and melting it in the process. \n\nBut what's going on at the molecular level? Basically, salt molecules are bonding with water molecules, making it more difficult for ice to form. The result is a solution with a lower freezing temperature. For example, a 10% salt solution freezes at 20°F (-6°C), while a 20% salt solution freezes at 2°F (-16°C). \n\nYou've also probably noticed the effect of salt water on freezing points if you've tried to make ice cream or if you've wondered why the ocean doesn't freeze at the same time as bodies of fresh water, such as rivers, lakes, and ponds.
933014
All decent explanations so far; I hope I can add to what has already been posted.\n\nLiquid and Ice most definitely can exist at the same temperature and Ice can be and often does get colder than 0C.\n \nFirst of all the Triple Point of water is the pressure and temperature at which Ice, Liquid Water and Water Vapor exist at the same time in equilibrium.  Vapor is the right word, not steam although you can argue that the only time that Water Vapor and Steam are the same thing is at a very low pressure.  The Triple point of water only happens at a near perfect vacuum, 0.0063 ATM to be precise.\n\nAdding Salt to water will lower the freezing point, but then it isn't water anymore, it's salt water.  Even so, Liquid Salt Water and Ice Salt Water can also exist at the same place and time at the same temperature, slightly below 0C.  But let's stick to water.\n\nIce can easily be lower than 0 degrees.  Consider a bucket of water, liquid water sitting outside and the air temperature is -10C.  Little by Little, as the liquid reaches 0.0098 C, liquid starts to become ice.  The ice crystals form in the bucket, around the walls of the bucket and on the surface first.  The air is still -10C so the bucket, the liquid and the ice will keep getting colder.  The ice on the surface will drop to slightly below 0C but very slowly since it is still absorbing the heat of the not-yet-frozen water.  Eventually, the entire bucket of water will be frozen and will be just below 0C.  First the walls of the bucket will reach -10C (same as the air tempertaure).  The ice near the walls of the bucket and on the surface will reach -10C first, continually absorbing the heat energy from the relatively warmer ice near the center of the bucket.  Until finally, the entire bucket of ice is steady at -10C.  That is until the sun comes out or the day gets warmer.\n\n\nAnd by the Way, dry ice is not water, it's frozen CO2 (Carbon Dioxide)\n\nOne more thing, at a near perfect vacuum, you can actually cool liquid water to less than 0C without it freezing.  Never tried that but I did accidently freeze a beer last night...
439741
there is a couple ways to do it. the first one is to insert the ice in a ice-chest and add salt around the ice the other option is to buy dry ice try to cover the regular ice with a plastic or with something to keep the regular ice separate from the dry ice and the dry ice around the plastic this would help to keep the ice cube frozen
741460
Two things are unusual about water.\n\n1. Frozen water (ice) is less dense than liquid water, as a few answerers have already said.  For every other liquid, the frozen form is more dense.\n\n2. As it cools, water gets steadily denser until about 4 degrees C, then it gets slightly less dense as it cools to its freezing point at zero degrees C.  Every other liquid just gets steadily denser and denser until it freezes.\n\nBoth of these unusual things are quite important for life on earth, but the second one is much more important than the first one.
751112
There is actually no such thing as "cold". What we mean by cold is really the "absence of heat". The heat is what is flowing out of your hand and into the ice, causing the ice to melt. Cold does not flow because cold does not exist. \nWhen I was in college we decided that it would be fun to invent the "electric dark bulb". It would shine darkness out in all directions, leaving well lit shadows behind objects that got in the way of the dark rays. But try as we might, we could never get a bulb that would shine dark rays. Cold is like that. I wish Arnold Schwartzenegger had known this when he decided to attack Gotham City with his freeze ray. It was doomed from the start, whether Batman showed up or not.
1174291
The water molecules align in specific order when making the crystals in ice.  This order takes up more volume than the random orientation they can achieve in the liquid phase.\n\nIn other words, the molecules can snuggle closer together as a liquid compared to a solid.
973898
That is a fantastic question.\nIt is a matter of humidity. The cold weather\nthat allows snow means the air is not humid\nenough to allow an electric current to travel\n(along the water vapor in the air) over the differently\ncharged clouds and sky. People who say temp are\nsort of right, but it is the low temp that leads to the low\nhumidity that causes the "problem".\n\nThanks for asking such a good question.
1047534
Ice expands during the freezing process by blending with air.. but when frozen it is one of the very few things that goes through a process called sublimination .. straight to vapor form from solid without being a liquid in between.. this is why ice cubes shrink over time when left in the freezer for long periods.. pretty cool stuff \n.. damn, I actually remembered something from high school .. haaa
284203
Ice lowers the melting point of water, so it causes the ice to turn to liquid water and break up.  If it's *really* cold, this doesn't help.
8528
All freezing (or rather: crystallisation) occurs on surfaces or crystal seeds. Water freezes "from the bottom" because liquid water closer to freezing has a greater density than solid water (aka ice), so the frozen crystals float up. In cases where the solid has  a greater density than the liquid (probably the majority of cases), the solid will sink down.
379878
Density is the key property that determines whether or not a substance floats.  Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water.  Why is ice less dense?  Because the water molecules in ice are arranged in a crystal lattice that spaces the molecules farther apart than when they are in the liquid state.  That is why ice floats.  \n\nBy the way, your initial statement that cold water is heavier than warm water is not exactly worded correctly.  It is more correct to say that cold water is denser than warm water, not heavier.
530819
Com'on people, you should know this.\n\nPut in the ice cube slowly, some water spills out, most of the ice is under water (about 92% due to lower density).  Ice melts in time and the water level drops very slightly due to: 1) water temperature drops a bit (higher density, lower volume), 2)evaporation.
426143
Ice floats on water because it is less dense than water.\n\nAs water cools past 5 degrees celsius, the density of the water actually decreases.  Since ice is water molecules at <0 degrees celsius, it is less dense than liquid water ( greater than 0 degrees), so it floats.\n\nfrom a molecular point of view, the H2O molecules in ice is equally spaced apart, whereas H20 in liquid state are able to slide past each other (i.e. closer to each other), so it is more dense than ice.
219472
Because cold air has a tendency to sink !!!