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Books : Science & Nature : Popular Science : Weather : Hurricanes, Cyclones & Tornados
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The Northern Lights is Lucy Jago's compassionate account of the lonely and ultimately tragic life of Kristian Birkeland, the pioneer of our understanding of the Aurora Borealis. The cost of scientific advancement should not be measured in purely financial terms--illumination did not come cheaply to Birkeland, who experienced poor health, heavy solitary drinking, a failed marriage, resentment from colleagues and lack of international respect. In fact, it took until nearly 50 years after his death in 1917 for his theories to be substantiated, a delay which slowed the advance of geomagnetic and auroral physics. As well a scientific biography, The Northern Lights is also the story of a small nation trying to come out from the shadow of larger ones, to be accorded respect scientifically and to gain political independence.Birkeland led expeditions to the freezing wastes of northern Norway to prove that the phenomenon Aristotle had called "jumping goats" and Galileo had termed boreale aurora, was caused by a flow of electric particles from the sun. He also went to Africa to study the Zodiacal Light, which he believed to be similarly derived but by then his mental and physical health were deteriorating fast, paranoia convincing him that the British, whose scientific fraternity had so stubbornly disdained his work, were spying on him. Unintentionally eccentric, as a university professor he wore a red fez and red leather Egyptian slippers and his idea of courtship involved sending a female admirer a sack of potatoes or perhaps some dried flatfish. As side-projects, he was also the inventor of the world's first commercial fertiliser maker and a more sinister electro-magnetic cannon. This is splendid, alleviating stuff for a biographer and former documentary producer Lucy Jago breathes commendably thawing air into a potentially icy subject. Fastidiously researched and recounted with unbounded vigour, the obvious comparison is with Dava Sobel's Longitude but perhaps the more pertinent one is with Richard Panek's history of the telescope, Seeing and Believing, for its concise science and accessible narrative. Either way, Jago's assured debut does great credit to an obsessive inquirer who sacrificed his life, too literally, for celestial enlightenment. --David Vincent
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On September 8, 1900, a massive hurricane slammed into Galveston, Texas. A tidal surge of some four feet in as many seconds inundated the city, while the wind destroyed thousands of buildings. When the water and winds subsided, entire streets had disappeared and as many as 10,000 were dead--making this the worst natural disaster in America's history.In Isaac's Storm, Erik Larson blends science and history to tell the story of Galveston, its people and the hurricane that devastated them. Drawing from hundreds of personal reminiscences of the storm, Larson follows individuals through the fateful day and the storm's aftermath. There's Louisa Rollfing, who begged her husband August not to go into town the morning of the storm; the Ursuline Sisters at St. Mary's orphanage who tied their charges to lengths of clothesline to keep them together; Judson Palmer, who huddled in his bathroom with his family and neighbours, hoping to ride out the storm. At the centre of it all was Isaac Cline, employee of the nascent Weather Bureau, and his younger brother--and rival weatherman--Joseph. Larson does an excellent job of piecing together Isaac's life and reveals that Isaac was not the quick-thinking hero he claimed to be after the storm ended. The storm itself, however, is the book's true protagonist--and Larson describes its nuances in horrific detail.
At times the prose is a touch too purple, but Larson is engaging and keeps the book's tempo rising in pace with the wind and waves. Overall, Isaac's Storm recaptures at a time when, standing in the first year of the century, Americans felt like they ruled the world--and that even the weather was no real threat to their supremacy. Nature proved them wrong. --Sunny Delaney
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Global warming is a fact. And although policy makers continue to argue about just what that means on a practical level, scientists assure us that one of the many consequences of that pattern of global warming will be ever more frequent and ever more intense storms. All of this makes David Longshore's book a timely, and highly useful, addition to a weather-watcher's library. Longshore, a historian with a particular interest in disasters, details the effects of hundreds of storms, from 1999's deadly Hurricane Floyd to unnamed tempests that wreaked havoc on the coast of India 700 years ago. His A-to-Z encyclopedia includes little-known fragments of history (such as Benjamin Franklin's career as a meteorologist, which extends well beyond the kite-in-a-thunderstorm legend to significant contributions, which are still current, such as the Law of Storms); notes on such storm-bred phenomena as the "firefly effect", in which billions of grains of sand collide in mid air and produce sparks; chronologies of major storms; and major articles on individual storms and storm-prone nations of the world.In a helpful appendix, Longshore reminds his readers that although surprise hurricanes are largely a thing of the past thanks to advances in storm prediction and monitoring, it is good common sense to keep your eye on the sky during hurricane and typhoon season. --Gregory McNamee
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Meteorologists called the storm that hit North America's eastern seaboard in October 1991 a "perfect storm" because of the rare combination of factors that created it. For everyone else, it was perfect hell. In The Perfect Storm, author Sebastian Junger conjures for the reader the meteorological conditions that created the "storm of the century" and the impact the storm had on many of the people caught in it. Chief among these are the six crew members of the swordfish boat the Andrea Gail, all of whom were lost 500 miles from home beneath roiling seas and high waves. Working from published material, radio dialogues, eyewitness accounts and the experiences of people who have survived similar events, Junger attempts to re-create the last moments of the Andrea Gail as well as the perilous high-seas rescues of other victims of the storm.Like a Greek drama, The Perfect Storm builds slowly and inexorably to its tragic climax. The book weaves the history of the fishing industry and the science of predicting storms into the quotidian lives of those aboard the Andrea Gail and of others who would soon find themselves in the fury of the storm. Junger does a remarkable job of explaining a convergence of meteorological and human events in terms that make them both comprehensible and unforgettable. --Christine Buttery
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The Perfect Storm is the tale of a doomed ship caught in the middle of what some meteorologists have called the storm of the century. At its heart is a gripping narrative about struggling for survival in a tempest of ferocious winds and 100-foot waves. But rookie author Sebastian Junger does more than simply spin a good yarn. His account of how fishermen ply their trade and lead their lives in the 1990s is fascinating. The same goes for his descriptions of storm formation, wave physics and the terror of drowning. Anybody who enjoys Jon Krakauer's work or "Drama in Real Life" from Reader's Digest will appreciate The Perfect Storm.
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For centuries the fisherfolk of Peru have been aware that, each Christmas, the chilly northbound waters of their shoreline are overswept by warmer southbound currents. The fishermen call this seasonal oceanic hiccup El Nino, "The Christ Child", in honour of its Yuletide timing and bountiful gifts of fish--a deceptively kindly epithet when you consider that, on those years when El Nino fails, as it does every decade or so, it causes worldwide disruption and mayhem.The job of author (and science filmmaker) Couper-Johnston is to explain the mechanism behind this mystery: how unexpected cold water in the Pacific means starvation in India, oil spills in Alaska, mosquito plagues in Memphis. The style is anecdotal and energetic: with one breathless bound CJ can shift from Aztec human sacrifice to Chinese child slavery to the sinking of the Titanic (all, it seems, promoted or caused by El Nino's climatic mischief-making).
Sometimes the writer's enthusiasm gets the better of him, and he overeggs the eco-meteorological pudding: by the end the reader is left wondering whether El Nino might be halfway responsible for the disappointing sales of the latest Oasis album. Nonetheless, an absorbing, accessible and highly enjoyable book.--Sean Thomas
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