EVALUATING WINDOW INSULATION FOR COLD CLIMATES

“icehouse” (cold) Climates

“icehouse” (cold) Climates

Earth's climate has changed, within life-sustaining bounds, from warm to cool intervals, on scales from thousands to hundreds of millions of years. In the Phanerozoic Eon there have been three intervals of glaciation (Ordovician, Carboniferous and Cenozoic) lasting tens of millions of years, with ice down to sea level at mid-latitudes (Frakes et al., 1992; Crowell, 1999). These cool " ice-house...

“icehouse” (cold) Climates

Plant adaptation to cold climates

In this short review, I will first summarize criteria by which environments can be considered "cold", with plant stature (size, height above ground) playing a central role for the climate actually experienced. Plants adapted to such environments have to cope with both extremes and with gradual influences of low temperature. The first requires freezing resistance, which is tightly coupled to dev...

Mix Design Development for Pervious Concrete In Cold Weather Climates

Portland cement pervious concrete (PCPC) is increasingly being used in the United States in sidewalks and parking lots due to its benefits in reducing the amount of runoff water and improving water quality. In the United States, PCPC typically has high porosity and low strength, which has resulted in limited use of pervious concrete in hard wet freeze environments (i.e., the Midwest and Northea...