Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
is that when the water in the soil becomes frozen it expands in volume and bulges
upwards, while any warming causes the frozen water in the soil to melt, reducing
its volume. This creates landscapes that are called thermokarst, marked by depres-
sions and domes produced the freezing and thawing processes. Roads and buildings
in these areas are, therefore, more subject to cracks, subsidence and collapse. Even
towns and cities with less extreme winters suffer from similar structural damage due
to freeze-thaw effects, which mean that roads especially require more maintenance
and do not last as long. An additional problem of winter is the greater presence of
shaded areas
, for the low angle rays of the winter sun are more easily blocked by
many features, ranging from mountain ranges to individual buildings. These shaded
areas are characterised by colder conditions and take longer to warm up. The effect
of shaded and sunny areas in Alpine valleys was well known historically in Europe,
identified by the German terms sonnenseit and schattenseit, or l'adret and l'ubec in
French zones, which refer to the sunny versus the shaded sides of the valleys. These
conditions led to the obvious response of more vegetation growth, as well as more
settlements, on the sunnier valley sides.
Many winter settlements are also subject to additional problems that come from
the
variability of winter conditions
. Intermittent storms and episodic periods of deep
cold or snow storms, within or between years, increase the problems of coping with
winter during these times, frequently bringing modern life, with its dependence
on daily routinized rhythms, to a standstill. The frequency of high winds leads to
greater risk of exposure due to wind-chill effects, as well as making travel more
difficult. Obviously
the severity of these conditions
varies throughout the north,
increasing with higher latitudes and altitudes, and in places that do not have shelter,
such as from mountain areas. In addition, influences such as the degree of exposure
to winds, their strength and frequency, or the presence of a cold offshore flowing
current can increase the impact of winter upon continental margins, such as the
southward cold Labrador current in eastern Canada. By contrast, warmer currents,
such as the Gulf Stream from the Caribbean that moves north-eastward to northern
Europe, reduces the severity of winter, ensuring that the two sides of the Northern
Atlantic have different climates at the same latitudes. So the European settlements
at the same latitude as those on the American continent are much warmer. More-
over, the effect of
modernity worsens the winter conditions
. For example: pollution
from cars soon dirties the snow, creating an ugly environment; the impact of traf-
fic compacts snow into ice, which is more difficult to remove or to travel on; the
frequent ploughing of snow off roads to allow vehicles to travel, often produces
mounds of snow alongside the roads that are difficult to traverse; when municipali-
ties move snow from roads to dumps, an additional pollution hazard occurs when it
melts, given the fact that it contains so many pollutants from the exhausts of cars.
In addition, there are a series of additional climate hazards, such as the negative ef-
fects produced by wind funnelling along roads aligned with the prevailing winds.
The Finnish architect Kuismanan (
2005
) has provided a comprehensive review of
the winter climate effects upon buildings, showing how major buildings need to
be aligned across the winds to provide a wind break. He also argued that the local
topography should be taken into account in designing structures and recommends
