Conspiracy Theorists Are Burning Snow to Prove It's Fake

[marmar]

(Popular Mechanics) Unprecedented winter storms in southern states have made those most affected by the weather pretty tense over the last week. But we can’t say we saw this one coming: New viral videos show TikTok users holding lighters to snowballs to stoke conspiracy theories about “fake snow” they say has been seeded by—wait for it—global environmental philanthropist and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

Yeah. It’s a lot.

In the videos, people hold open flames from lighters and other implements directly up to hardpacked snowballs. The snowballs don’t appear to melt, but instead, they burn. “No water, no dripping, no nothing,” says one woman, who believes there’s metal inside the snow, and that Gates is somehow to blame. ( Warning: This video contains explicit language—and Popular Mechanics certainly doesn’t condone using the term in this tweet to describe the good people of Texas. )

Link to tweet

?s=20

So what’s really happening here? The truth isn’t something sinister—it’s just science. The fire is causing the frozen mass of snow to sublimate straight into water vapor, not liquid water. Sublimation is when a solid skips the liquid phase and goes directly to gas. (The opposite happens, too, like when your breath freezes and shatters on the coldest days.) ........(more)

https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a35590304/conspiracy-theorists-burning-snow-viral-tiktok-videos/

[Midnight Writer]

1. Just hold the snow in your hand for a minute. If your hand is wet, then the snow is melting.

Or simply look out the window. Is there less snow today than there was yesterday? That's because it is melting.

[StClone]

3. If you watch closely water drops come off the snowball...

...and the blackened film is the fuel carbonizing and adhering to the ice crystals. MAROONS. Does your car float, and you can turn invisible...bet you can.

[PirateRo]

2. Oh, not this nonsense again! First time I saw this was 2014.

Here’s Phil ‘splaining it all:

&feature=emb_logo

[lagomorph777]

4. My god. Are we the same country that put a man on the moon?

How did we become such idiots?

[StClone]

6. Notice these geniuses have to wear gloves to handle the "fake snow?"

Because it is cold? I suppose the Gov. spends all this time making Texas cold and icy because we have an excess of trillions of megawatts to chill millions of square millions. Yes that makes sense.

[HUAJIAO]

8. ronald reagan

[DSandra]

15. Getting people to focus and be consumed on fear, hate, and racism...

along with the poor education system, inadequate access to college, and the stresses and demands of modern society, gets them to become more “autopilot” and less engaged with using and exercising the front part of their brain. When your consumed with stress and emotion (incl. fear and rage), it acts like sludge to the rational parts of the brain, making it much harder for them to work.

[yardwork]

5. I guess these people never saw a snowball before?

[StClone]

7. LOL that maybe true and not accustomed to its properties.

[dalton99a]

9. Idiots never heard of something called heat of vaporization

Dry strong winds make snow disappear all the time on Mt Everest

[GemDigger]

10. If it ain't (deliberate usage) snow, why the gloves?

Depending on how packed the snow is makes a difference as well, if it is compressed into an iceball.... maybe she should try burning an ice cube to see if it's really water...

Sounded like a good science experiment so I had to go outside and try it. results: loose snow melts, ice balls just change shape until it is gone.

[Warpy]

11. I suppose the extreme cold was fake, too.

This woman sounds like the Crazy Sprinkler Lady (she's still on You Tube).

Snow does sublime in extremely arid conditions. The stuff on the ground here in the high desert just gets shallower every day when the temperatures remain well below freezing, with no sign of melting on pavement. It just goes away into the air.

[DavidDvorkin]

12. That happens sometimes in Denver in the middle winter

And yet our snow is real.

[ZonkerHarris]

13. If the snow is fake then WTF were all those Texans complaining about? Suckers fell for the hoax

[Tree-Hugger]

14. It's called sublimation

This process is called sublimation. And the burn marks are frozen butane vapor.

God...please put Science back in schools.