[ConservativeMind]

Bob, I don't entirely understand this take:

“Though technically, the salt does not melt the ice, its dark color attracts heat, allowing the ice below it to melt, which than allows the salt to mix with the water. And it does not refreeze because the salt dramatically lowers the freezing point of the water.”

Maybe someone can help me. So I can bite that ice can only lower the freezing point of liquid water and not already frozen water, but how does salt have a “dark color” that is so dark, it attracts heat, over the whiteness of ice and snow? I see salt as white to clear, so what is going on?

[Red Badger]

road ice..................

[Scrambler Bob]

I see salt as white to clear, so what is going on?
= = =

You might be a white supremacist, and don’t recognize that white IS black, absorbing heat (and adding to global warming also).

Perhaps, salt crystals can absorb solar heat while the frozen show rejects it. I wouldn’t call that ‘dark color’. Perhaps a real scientist can clarify.

[NorthMountain]

but how does salt have a “dark color” that is so dark, it attracts heat, over the whiteness of ice and snow?

That part is bullshit, IMO. Road salt works at night ...I'm not totally clear on how road salt gets started, but the liquid brine around the salt crystal seems to dissolve the ice surrounding it. A salt crystal on solid ice will melt a hole down through it. It seems to work better on traveled roads where traffic churns it up than on a driveway.