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How the Ocean Works
by Helen Czerski
Book Reviewed by:A scientist's exploration of the "ocean engine"—the physics behind the ocean's systems—and why it matters.
All of Earth's oceans, from the equator to the poles, are a single engine powered by sunlight, driving huge flows of energy, water, life, and raw materials. In The Blue Machine, physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski illustrates the mechanisms behind this defining feature of our planet, voyaging from the depths of the ocean floor to tropical coral reefs, estuaries that feed into shallow coastal seas, and Arctic ice floes.
Through stories of history, culture, and animals, she explains how water temperature, salinity, gravity, and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates all interact in a complex dance, supporting life at the smallest scale—plankton—and the largest—giant sea turtles, whales, humankind. From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves, to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she introduces the messengers, passengers, and voyagers that rely on interlinked systems of vast currents, invisible ocean walls, and underwater waterfalls.
Most important, however, Czerski reveals that while the ocean engine has sustained us for thousands of years, today it is faced with urgent threats. By understanding how the ocean works, and its essential role in our global system, we can learn how to protect our blue machine. Timely, elegant, and passionately argued, The Blue Machine presents a fresh perspective on what it means to be a citizen of an ocean planet.
Humans and the Ocean
As citizens of the Earth, we cannot escape the influence of the oceans, and we shouldn't want to. Humans have piggybacked on this deep blue engine for generations, our tiny vulnerable vessels trading and exploring where the surface took us, without regard to the inner workings of the deep. Battles have been won and lost on the basis of what the ocean threw at us, and whole societies have grown up around its fertile places, responding to unseen ocean mechanics without any knowledge of why there were fish here and not there. Even on land, the most suitable regions for agriculture are often dictated by the nearby seas. The ocean is deeply woven into human culture, and the threads always track back to the engine and, ultimately, to the energy flow. But even though they couldn't see the whole engine, intelligent and observant humans from many cultures have seen parts of the pattern, and have gained deep expertise in their own waters, more than enough to navigate, fish,...
It's an ambitious book, breaking an incredibly complex global "machine" into parts that the layperson can grasp. Czerski uses a wide variety of examples to illustrate her points and relate the science back to ideas more familiar to readers. While this demonstrates just how connected the ocean is to all aspects of life on Earth, the rapid topic shifts sometimes distract from the main ideas she is describing. Unlike many popular ocean science books, the focus is firmly on physics rather than biology—though she discusses ocean life extensively, it is always in terms of how it is shaped by its environment. I would highly recommend this book to readers interested in ocean science, both for its own sake and to give global context to more narrowly focused books on the topic...continued
Full Review
(717 words)
(Reviewed by Katharine Blatchford).
Helen Czerski's book The Blue Machine explains how Earth's oceanic system functions, including some discussion of the work that went into discovering that information. A few expeditions that contributed greatly were those of the Norwegian ship the Fram, which explored the Arctic and Antarctic oceans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In June of 1881, the USS Jeanette was trapped in ice north of Siberia. The crushing power of the ice damaged the ship badly enough that the crew were forced to abandon it, and it subsequently sank. Later, debris from the ship was found on the Greenland coast, 2,900 nautical miles from where it was lost. This led Norwegian scientist Henrik Mohn to theorize the existence of a current running from east...
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