While ice reflects around 80 percent of the sun's heat, having a cooling effect, blue sea water can absorb up to 95 percent of solar radiation, warming up the sea and accelerating themeltingprocess further.
Since the total mass of the ocean and ice remains unchanged during themeltingprocess, this has often led to the erroneous assumption that sea level will be unaffected by themelting of floating ice, say geologists David Holland and Adrian Jenkins.
In a less elegant but no less impressive effort, NEXT Architects and designer Aura Luz Melis built a lamp that's filled with vegetable fat, which constantly changes its brightness through theprocess of melting and re-solidifying the fat.