Floors, cold store

In most cases, the insulation will be the greatest resistance to heat flow and other materials in the construction and surface resistances are ignored in estimating heat gains through cold store walls, ceilings and floors. 

Western white pine seeds can remain viable for a few years in the forest floor. Seeds have shown 40% viability after one winter, 25% viabihty after two winters, and less than 1% after 3 or 4 years in the forest floor (Graham, 1990). When properly dried and cold stored, western white pine seeds can remain viable for at least 20 years (Kmgman and Jenkinson, 1974). 

Material stored at or below its atmospheric pressure boiling point has no superheat. Therefore there will be no initial flash of liquid to vapor in case of a leak. Vaporization will be controlled by the evaporation rate from the pool formed by the leak. This rate can be minimized by the design of the containment dike, for example, by minimizing the surface area of the liquid spilled into the dike area, or by using insulating concrete dike sides and floors. Because the spilled material is cold, vaporization from the pool will be further reduced. 

Since methane is almost always a byproduct of organic decay, it is not surprising that vast potential reserves of methane have been found trapped in ocean floor sediments. Methane forms continually by tiny bacteria breaking down the remains of sea life. In the early 197Qs it was discovered that this methane can dissolve under the enormous pressure and cold temperatures found at the ocean bottom. It becomes locked in a cage of water molecules to form a methane hydrate (methane weakly combined chemically with water). This "stored" methane is a resource often extending hundreds of meters down from the sea floor. 

As it has been stressed already, oceans strongly influence the climate by storing heat. Moreover, there are also currents that transport warm water from the equator to higher latitudes and cold water from the poles to the equator. The Gulf Stream flows from the coast of North America toward northern Europe, at a flow rate of 10-12 km/hour. This current carries 100 times more water than all rivers on earth put together. In tropical seas the water is warmed by the sun, diluted by rainwater and aerated by waves. In higher latitudes surface waters are cold and more dense. Those dense waters sink to the bottom to the ocean floors flowing toward the equator, warm water however is less dense and floats on top of this cold water. Also different salinity plays an important role in these processes. 

---