Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them

by Porter Fox

For readers of THE PERFECT STORM and BLUE LATITUDES, recast for our era of rapid ecological transformation, comes an urgent, stirring amalgam of climate writing, history, adventure story, and fascinating personal memoir. The story of extreme weather doesn’t begin with heat waves, floods, fires, or even the air that carries this change to our lives. It begins with the oceans. Oceans create weather, just as oceans have shaped the arc of human civilization and the genesis and the growth of nations throughout history. The secret to understanding the frightening effects of climate change, award-winning writer Porter Fox contends, is in understanding how major changes in the oceans radically affect climate, hurricanes, droughts, and most of the geophysical fallout of global warming. To understand how we can live through the coming age of superstorms, scientists have followed the lead of a college drop-out-turned-maverick sailor and storm-chaser; a Romanian refugee turned BBC radio host turned circumnavigating mapmaker, Jimmy Cornell; and an audacious new attempt to study storms above as well as deep below the ocean depths, using drones.

Category Five revolves around Fox's time shadowing these mavericks and seeking out myriad scientists, oceanographers, and weather forecasters who are working with them, all in an attempt to understand and forestall — and just maybe harness — the awesome power of our oceans. Along the way, Fox takes us through the history of oceans and climate, and back into his own youth as the son of a celebrated boat builder — aboard a boat his father constructed.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Environment, Audiobook, Nature, Travel, Memoir

275 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 3, 2024

About the author

Porter Fox was born in New York and raised on the coast of Maine. His book Northland, about travels along the U.S.-Canada border, will be published by W.W. Norton in July, 2018. He lives, writes, teaches and edits the award-winning literary travel writing journal Nowhere in Brooklyn, NY. He graduated with an MFA in fiction from The New School in 2004 and teaches at Columbia University School of the Arts. His fiction, essays and nonfiction have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, Outside, Men’s Journal, National Geographic Adventure, Powder, TheNewYorker.com, TheParisReview.com, Salon.com, Narrative, The Literary Review, Northwest Review, Third Coast and Conjunctions, among others. In 2013 he published DEEP: The Story of Skiing and the Future of Snow. The book was featured on the cover of The New York Times Sunday Review and in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Fox has been anthologized in The Best American Travel Writing, nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and was a finalist for the 2009 Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize. He was a 2016 MacDowell Colony fellow and a recipient of MacDowell’s Calderwood Foundation Art of Nonfiction Grant. He won a Western Press Association Maggie in 2014 for a two-part feature about climate change. He has written and edited scripts for Roger Corman and several documentary filmmakers. He recently completed his first collection of short stories and an anthology of short fiction with poet Larry Fagin. He is a member of the Miss Rockaway Armada and Swimming Cities art collectives in New York and collaborated on installations on the Mississippi and Hudson rivers, Venice Biennale (2009), Mass MoCA (2008) and New York City’s Anonymous Gallery (2009).

Reviews

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a really good book in there… but this is 1) not at all what the title and subtitle suggest, and 2) part of the creative side of how we should be talking about climate change- so while it’s probably a 3 star book, as is, I think there’s value in even the artistic misses

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for the eARC of this book! I can't wait to read more of Porter Fox's work now that I've found him!

I'm not the most passionate person when it comes to the ocean, weather, or climate change. I believe all of them are important, but I don't consider myself to be the most knowledgeable advocate. In his book, Porter Fox explains SO many aspects of all three of these things and some of it blew my mind! The OCEAN can help us manage CARBON emissions and have a DIRECT EFFECT on climate change?! I would have NEVER thought!!! But now that I know, I think it's SO COOL!!! 🤩 Personally, I find sailing and the ocean in general terrifying, so I can't say I'd ever navigate directly into a storm cell developing over open water like Fox chronicled at one point in the book, but kudos to him for doing it haha! I came into this book knowing very little about the earth's climate and the way our society is changing it, but Fox's informative book taught me so much about the ways superstorms occur and the internal mechanics of how they function.

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested. As a novice on this topic, I felt this book was approachable and manageable; there weren't a ton of words and jargon I didn't understand or explanations that went over my head. I was able to comprehend what Fox was sharing and I'm coming away from this read feeling informed and with a new sense of awareness, but hopeful that there's still more to come in Earth's story.

[BethK · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

This nonfiction book reads much like a fiction book with the author's reminiscence and vivid descriptions of exciting situations upon the sea. Combination travelogue, sailing manual, history guide, and science book – focusing on where oceanography and climate science meet. This book was both a fascinating read as well as an adventurous one. Written in first person narrative, the author takes us through his childhood through his boat building, academic career, and his investigations traveling mostly by a motorized sailboat to talk with renowned scientists.

What is happening with the weather and climate? How have things changed up until now? Can we stop or reverse it? Importantly, how can the oceans save us – and what do we have to do to help them or what are we likely to do to slow that down?

[David Jonescu · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who was once a marine biology major and lived near oceans for over half of my life, storms have fascinated me. Porter Fox uses his love of sailing and intertwines it with science to show how storms are getting bigger and bigger. Overall thought this book was well written and well constructed fun read with thoughtful insights from different sailors and scientists.

I received a free advanced copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Chris Vernon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty interesting, it’s a book about climate change but told from the point of view of a yachtsman, a sailor. Part memoir, part travelogue with plenty of interviews with scientists along the way. He’s keen to highlight the importance of the ocean in climate science, something he feels is often overlooked. We spend more public money investing oceans on distant moons than we do on our own ocean despite its vital role in future climate change.

[Mary Agnes Joens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is interesting -- it's part memoir, part pop-climate science, part travelogue. Porter Fox is clearly a gifted writer and manages to pull these disparate parts together reasonably well. I do think the book is at its best when focusing on climate change and Fox's interviews with scientists, but I enjoyed the parts about his various sailing voyages even if I wasn't especially interested in the technical details of sailing through storms.

Also, this book just gave me ammunition for my most long-held controversial scientist take, which is: take all of NASA's money and give it to NOAA.

[eastcoast nowwest · Rating 4 out of 5]

it’s colorful. if it was all science it might be too dire to stomach. all the backstory and sailing bits add up to define what might be lost for future gens. must reading for insurance industry as if they don’t know the eventualities via current policy cancellations already. great to hear the science community get a voice.

[Ariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was part memoir, part natural disaster voyage, and all a wonderful read.

[Theo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book, love learning about the oceans. Lots of sailing/boat vocab I had to keep looking up!!

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are not enough words to describe how much I loathed the vast majority of this book but I’m going to give it the old college try anyway.

This is another case of a book having a deliberately misleading title - it’s supposed to be about warming oceans so why the hell are we spending so much time hearing about his childhood memories of his father, his family history, his father’s boat making, an interminable trek to get his boat out of dry dock and a really really boring and pretty uneventful boat trip to NYC and Martha’s Vineyard? The title didn’t indicate “memoir” and I’m thinking that’s because most people would have looked at that and asked themselves “mmm who the hell is Porter Fox and why should I read his memoir?” None of the stuff he is blathering on about for the majority of this book has anything to do with warming oceans - it’s just the author thinking “oh this is so poetic and poignantly relevant to the topic of ‘the sea’ that I just have to include it.” Hell he even threw in a Melville quote ABOUT NYC rather than something about, oh I don’t know, the place where the whale lived which according to the title is actually warming and causing some dire consequences for the human race.

What’s frustrating is that he spent so much time on the irrelevant memoir and boring travelogue portions of this book when he could have instead spent that time on the science he learned from speaking with the scientists. You know, the stuff the title and the jacket description specifically say the book is actually going to address. Those parts were fascinating but they were just mini-essays crammed in sporadically between all the other stuff.

[Rowland Hill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be Aware: A Potential Solution To The Climate Crisis

Intriguing, well written account of ocean and climate exploration. The author delves into climate science with some brilliant marine and climate professionals while discussing his own personal experiences with the oceans of the world. Scary and insightful account that opens up a possible planet saving course of action.

[Hallie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Category Five: Superstorms and the Warming Oceans That Feed Them addresses the consequences of climate change and warming oceans on the weather, primarily on the hurricanes and typhoons that develop over these warmer waters. The result is bigger storms, deadlier storms, reaching parts of the earth that don't normally see such storms. I love reading about the science behind these storms.

I read Porter Fox's last book, The Last Winter, and really enjoyed it. He's a very good writer: mixing the autobiographical with the biographical with the science but also writing about nature in such a beautiful way. I would say this book is even more autobiographical given his family history. His father built ships, and Fox has a long history of sailing. He has first-hand experience with disastrous weather while out on the ocean. I do think there was more of that than I was expecting in this book. There are entire chapters dedicated to him sailing around New England. They are well-written don't get me wrong, but it wasn't what I was expecting from a book about superstorms and climate change.

As for the possible solution proposed in this book, carbon sequestration, it was more of a hint than an actual exploration of the potential consequences of that solution. Essentially, our oceans' food chains feed on phytoplankton who absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As this carbon dioxide gets fed (pardon the pun) further up the food chain, the creatures produce "marine snow" in the form of carbon that lands on the ocean floors. Yes, it's just poop. The proposed solution is to inject iron into the oceans, thus encouraging algal blooms, causing a feeding frenzy that increases the amount of carbon dioxide that is absorbed into our oceans. It seems like a great idea. Something to think about, though, is whether absorption of carbon dioxide through this method would increase the other problem: ocean acidification. When carbon dioxide is absorbed, it doesn't always just become carbon. It also produces carbonic acid when combined with water. The increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans has caused increased acidity, which will also impact the very food chain carbon sequestration that Fox proposes as a solution to our carbon dioxide problem. I'm sure the scientists will work it out and Fox can write about it in his next book!
 
Netgalley and Little, Brown and Company provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Charles Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

80%

I like the book. I love the idea of ocean exploration. However, it's actually more advanced currently than the deep space exploration that we already go into. And I didn't realize this until he brought it up. Because very recently, I've been thinking about this. And that's when I heard him say, let's do ocean exploration. I'm like, wait a second. No, actually, I think that's less efficient than space exploration. Because the ocean is such a more, so much more difficult environment because of water itself and pressure. As we go down, it's extremely challenging. And we literally cannot even stay down in these deep depths for even hours without dying. Whereas we can stay in space essentially forever. Why? Unfortunately, we just can't do what we want to do with ocean exploration. So, it's counterintuitive, but that's the reality of the situation. So, we need to work on ocean exploration after space and subterranean exploration options. And now the climate change angle here, very cool. But again, that's deep ocean stuff. We have an extreme amount of difficulty with deep ocean exploration. Very cool book, otherwise, because we do explore a lot of cool ocean concepts.

[Ddoddmccue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written and intimate quest to explore increasingly extreme weather and the role of oceans.

The increasing impact of climate change is hard to ignore. Can oceans, as reflectors to these changes, also offer solutions?


Fox, son of an acclaimed boat builder and himself an accomplished sailer, takes this task personally, directing his inquiry to a fascinating collection of sailers and oceanographers. In addition to the targeted information gleaned, he highlights these quirky and endearing souls while also including details of the sailing journeys-including his trek to Woods Hole from the comforts of his upstate NY home, far from the sea.

That Fox’s account reminded me of Donovan Hohn’s Moby Duck and his later exploration of the Great Lakes is a high compliment. That Fox also offered suggestions for related readings ( Rachel Carson, reread time) was appreciated.

Landlubbers, give this book a look.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent dive into the phenomenon of superstorms brought about my anthropogenic climate change. The author grew up sailing, so his lens is fascinating—he discusses the lore and patterns fellow sailers observed over a lifetime, then delves into the science. I love this approach. The one significant beef I have is how the author at one point suggests that the free market could support agency work, akin to SpaceX and NASA. I hate this idea because space exploration was specifically deregulated so companies could generate profit off space exploration—that same profit drive being what’s driving climate change. This frustrated me a lot. But the rest of the book is excellent, and I still strongly recommend it!

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have like pages of notes from this book. It's just pretty fascinating in general. Some samplings of things I learned: I need to read Zorba the Greek which is apparently about "fearful winds", okeanos is a term used by the ancient Greeks meaning the end of the earth and the beginning of the netherworld, and that a sympathetic teacher guiding students during a storm on a ship will manage their collective shock by instructing them to do tasks like removing items from a deck or other things to keep their mind off of the scary storm. Not a super emotional subject imo but there were definitely like oodles of threads started that I feel like can serve as really interesting rabbithole dives.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to believe the author was writing one kind of book and a publishing house kinda forced the author to pivot to talking about climate change because the book is 2/3 memoir and a third about storms.

The author is really spending his time talking about sailing and his relationship with his father. It's only in some spots he mentions hurricanes and climate change. The oceans are the place where storms begin, but he doesn't really leave the water to the way that storms are going to affect land and cities.

It's not inherently a bad book, but it really doesn't seem to fit into a pop science or memoir genre and so it doesn't end up doing either very well.

[Ione DeOllos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book explores the role ocean science plays in climate change. He oceanographic discussion was a fascinating look at not just the role the oceans play in reducing carbon dioxide but, also, the discussion of the deep ocean ecosystem. However, since I know nothing about sailimg, I frequently got lost in the discussion of sailing and ships. Overall, I would recommend this book to people interested in the causes and solutions to climate.change.

[Max C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Making the path to real and challenging climate change mitigation understandable and compelling

I liked the memoiresque approach taken to revealing the amazing context and causal relationships of climate variables, where the science is, and what, where mitigating measures are possible.

I will definitely share and recommend this book to family and friends some of whom are still deniers of global warming.

I rated it highly because the author makes this incredibly complex and challenging topic assessable and fun / compelling to read.

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Porter Fox visits explorers, scientists, oceanographers, weather forecasters and sailors in this discussion of how the oceans and increasingly extreme weather patterns are related. Terrifying and hopeful but in today’s political climate, hard to see how the necessary resources will be made available.
The Suggested Reading at the end proposes more enticing books.

[Terry McIntire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well-written story. The adventures at sea make for a good read. The goal of the book is to bring some optimism to the effect of climate change. Maybe the oceans could save us or give us time to save ourselves. While I enjoyed the book, I would say am slightly less pessimistic as opposed to more optimistic.

[Philemon - · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the title and cover, I expected an updated scientific survey of oceanography / meteorology in the context of the growing climate change crisis. There was some of that, but to a large extent what was offered were the travel memoirs of an expert yachtsman. The stories were congenial, entertaining, well-founded, and well-written, but I couldn't help feeling a bit bait-and-switched.

[Jim Twombly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully descriptive and fear-inducing. Fox certainly has done his research and presents a great deal of scientific detail in a digestible way. It helped that his sailing journey, which led to his last set of interviews, included landmarks I was familiar with. The one downside was a heavy reliance on sailing jargon that non-sailing readers might have difficulty following (as I did).

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The subtitle says it all - warming oceans feed superstorms. The author roams around to talk with some knowledgeable people about things like sailing in storms, measuring temperatures & CO2 in the world’s oceans, and marine snow. The focus of the book seems to roam around a bit too. Part memoir, part science, not always tightly linked together, but generally quite interesting.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vitally important book about the ocean, the storms that form there, and also a possible solution wherein the ocean, already the biggest sequester of carbon, can be induced to avert the growing climate crisis.

[Jo Matey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts with captivating adventures at sea, blending with sailing tutorials; then adds fascinating intricacies and genesis of meteorological phenomena, before devolving into more academic minutia on climate issues.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look into oceanic currents with plenty of seafaring stories to accommodate the science. The audiobook narrator has an appropriate voice for the topic, and overall it's an interesting dive into climate change dynamics.

[Jade · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was such a hard read. I feel like the last chapter made up for a lot. It bounced around so many different topics and ideas, sometimes even in the same compound sentence. Nice concept, but a bit lacking in fluidity.

[Steven Beningo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, extremely well-written, book about a major component of climate change.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you for the ARC.

I enjoyed this book, but didn't realize it was going to be about so many boats.