The Icicle Atlas

• What is the Icicle Atlas?

  Icicles are familiar to anyone living in a cold climate. But what determines their shape and growth? Their distinctive forms emerge from the complex interplay between their evolving shape and the flow of air and water over their surfaces. These flows in turn control the release of heat needed to transform water into ice. Impurities in the water also play an important role, especially in the formation of ribs or ripples around the circumference of the icicle.

  The Icicle Atlas is a collection of images, time-lapse movies, 3D printable files and time-series data on 237 distinct laboratory-grown icicles, made at the University of Toronto, Department of Physics, between 2008 and 2012. Each run of the icicle growing machine resulted in an icicle whose growth conditions were measured and controlled. These data were used in several published studies of icicle morphology.

  The data in the Icicle Atlas is freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

• The icicle data:

There are over 230,000 images of icicles in the Atlas and hundreds of time lapse movies and 3D printable files. These are all linked off the homepage of each run of the icicle growing machine. You can access these homepages by following the links below.
• The Icicle Rogues Gallery, for random access to run homepages, sorted by icicle appearance.
• The full data table, listing the growing conditions and run homepages, sorted by date.
• The master spreadsheet with details of all runs in formats: [csv][xlsx].
• The Icicle Atlas on the borealis dataverse repository.

• Scientific publications and talks:

• Experiments on the growth and form of icicles, by Antony Szu-Han Chen, Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, Oct. 2013.
• From the thesis archive on T Space, U. Toronto Library.
• On the origin and evolution of icicle ripples, by Antony Szu-Han Chen and Stephen W. Morris, New Journal of Physics, 15, 103012 (2013).
• ArXiv version, [free preprint].
• Published version [open access].
• Experiments on the morphology of icicles, by Antony Szu-Han Chen and Stephen W. Morris, Physical Review E, 83, 026307 (2011).
• ArXiv version, [free preprint].
• Published version [subscription required].
• Experiments on the dynamic wetting of growing icicles, by John Ladan and Stephen W. Morris, New Journal of Physics, 23, 123017 (2021).
• Video abstract [YouTube].
• Published version [open access].
• Pattern of inclusions inside rippled icicles, by John Ladan and Stephen W. Morris, Physical Review E, 106, 054211 (2022).
  • Published version [subscription required].
  • Synopsis, by the APS.
  • ArXiv version [free preprint].

• Experiments on the formation of rippled icicles, by John Ladan, Ph.D. thesis, unpublished, Jan. 2023.
  • From the thesis archive on T Space, U. Toronto Library.

• The Mysterious Science of Icicles, an online talk.
• given at IdeaCity, Toronto, June 18th, 2015.
• The Growth and Morphology of Icicles, a short course on icicle physics at Interfreeze 2026: Freezing and Interfaces, in Cargese Corsica, 17-23 May, 2026.
• Part 1: Shape, [slides].
• Part 2: Ripples, [slides].
• Part 3: Interior and Flow, [slides].

• Related links:

• The Icicle Atlas Playlist on YouTube, featuring composite movies made from Icicle Atlas data.
• The Icicle Album, a Flickr album of composite images and movies made from Icicle Atlas data, and some images of natural icicles.
• More lab icicles, including from new data, some with dye, a Flickr album of composite images using data beyond the Icicle Atlas.
• The Icicle Machine, a Flickr album of images of the icicle growing machine.
• Video of an ArtScience Salon event on Icicle Music, at the Fields Institute, Dec. 3, 2015.

• People and contact information:

• Antony Szu-Han Chen, Ph. D. (main author).
• John Ladan, Ph. D.
• Stephen W, Morris, (professor and supervisor, main contact).

Other contributors: Stephen Peppin, Jake Wells, Charles Ward, Ken Liao, Alina Barnett, Joshua Calafato, Roger Mong.