# When will ice melt faster?

My question is, will ice melt faster if it is left in the water created from melting or will it melt faster if the melted water is drained off?

• My opinion is that this can be solved by experiment by freezing 2 equal volumes of water and have one drained off while the other stays stagnant – Gobabis Dec 4 '16 at 18:16
• as for homework and exercises the question arises as I was sin a pub I saw the barmaid drain off the water from the melting ice – Gobabis Dec 4 '16 at 18:20
• In my opinion this is not a homework-and-exercises type of question, so I have removed the tag and replaced it with everyday-life, which is in keeping with your comment about what motivated you to ask. – sammy gerbil Dec 5 '16 at 3:45

Energy-wise, it is clear that if the melted water is immediately drained off, the only energy which needs to be supplied is the melting enthalpy for the ice ($333.5 \textrm{ J/g}$ according to wikipedia). If the water stays there, it needs to be heated up before the ice continues melting. The heat capacity of water is ~$4.2\textrm{ J/K*g}$ according to my memory. So, depending on your environment conditions (i.e., environment temperature), the energy needed to warm up the water is only a small additional energy contribution. Still, energy-wise, it is a bad idea to also heat up the melted water if you could also just take it out of your system.