Design...
Santiago Calatrava

WORLD TRADE CENTER TRANSPORTATION HUB "Designed as a freestanding structure of glass and steel and situated within a landscaped plaza, the new, permanent transportation hub for Lower Manhattan will provide service for the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) commuter trains, New York city subway trains (1/9, E and N/R lines and a potential rail link to John F. Kennedy International Airport, as well as seamless, indoor pedestrian access to the World Financial Center, adjacent buildings, and the proposed new Fulton Street Transit Center."

A new work by Santiago Calatrava will be seen at the transportation hub emerging at the World Trade Center site in New York City. A prototype displaying the moving wing characteristics of the NYC structure can be seen at the Milwaukee Art Museum pictured below.

Web link - Santiago Calatrava

Views from inside the museum
Burke Brise Soleil, a sunscreen that can be raised or
lowered creating a unique moving sculpture.

Climate Change

---

Hitting the Ice Sheets Where It Hurts

"Several large tidewater outlet glaciers of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets now appear to exhibit a nearly universal signature of recent increased discharge to the ocean. That this increase is occurring in the Northern and Southern hemispheres suggests a common cause. The culprit may be additional heat delivered by subsurface waters melting the submarine bases of these glaciers. This scenario would explain the observations and at the same time provide evidence that warmer subsurface waters are reaching the Earth's polar latitudes. Moreover, it indicates that the ocean plays a more critical role than the atmosphere in determining near-term glaciological contributions to changes in sea level."

"Oceanic low blows. Schematic representing warm intermediatedepth water breaching a submarine sill and sinking in a water cavity beneath the ice shelf to access the grounding line of an outlet glacier."

"A recent assessment of changes in speed and mass balance around Greenland identifies these three large glaciers as among the most active recently, with accelerations up to 210% (12). The activity on Kangerdlugssuaq and Helheim glaciers has been confirmed by analysis of optical imagery on slightly different time intervals (13). Smaller glaciers along the southeast and southwest Greenland coasts are also accelerating (12)."

by Robert Bindschadler
Science Magazine
24 March 2006