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18 Miles: The Epic Drama of Our Atmosphere and Its Weather
From the bestselling author of Acquainted with the Night comes a brilliant and witty look at our favourite topic — weather
We live at the bottom of an ocean of air — 5,200 million million tons, to be exact. It sounds like a lot, but Earth’s atmosphere is smeared onto its surface in an alarmingly thin layer — 99 percent contained within 18 miles. Yet, within this fragile margin lies a magnificent realm — at once gorgeous, terrifying, capricious, and elusive. With his keen eye for identifying and uniting seemingly unrelated events, Chris Dewdney reveals to us the invisible rivers in the sky that affect how our weather works and the structure of clouds and storms and seasons, the rollercoaster of climate. Dewdney details the history of weather forecasting and introduces us to the eccentric and determined pioneers of science and observation whose efforts gave us the understanding of weather we have today.
18 Miles is a kaleidoscopic and fact-filled journey that uncovers our obsession with the atmosphere and weather — as both evocative metaphor and physical reality. From the roaring winds of Katrina to Palladio’s architectural triumph, La Rotonda, Dewdney entertains as he gives readers a long overdue look at the very air we breathe.
264 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 23, 2018
40 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Dewdney
30 books22 followersChristopher Dewdney has served as writer-in-residence at Trent, Western, and York universities. Featured in Ron Mann’s film Poetry in Motion with William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Michael Ondaatje, and Tom Waits, Dewdney has presented his groundbreaking poetics across North America and Europe.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
December 5, 2018
I've been waiting a long time for Dewdney's new book, and this one doesn't disappoint.
I enjoyed it, simply, because I enjoy Dewdney's writing style, regardless of the topic. As a poet, his sentences are sharp and he can conjure images that are extremely vivid.
Take chapter 9: Apollo's Chariot. It starts out:
'The wolves are the first to sense it.'
And I'm immediately pulled into the writing. In one sentence we are taken to the cold, remote wilderness inhabited by the wolf where a foreboding and mystery are created - what do they sense?
He goes on to liken the 'ice-hoary Grise Fiord' as to 'buildings long-submerged under the ocean and covered with coral encrustations.' After reading that, I just sat back and imagined it. My friends, this is a book to be savoured!
Conclusion: don't approach this book like you would a text book for school, which is to say as a jug of information that you pour into your short-term memory. Yes, you will learn a lot about the atmosphere and weather but, for me, that's not the point. This book is a celebration that will engage your fascination and curiosity with the natural world. Just enjoy it!
I enjoyed it, simply, because I enjoy Dewdney's writing style, regardless of the topic. As a poet, his sentences are sharp and he can conjure images that are extremely vivid.
Take chapter 9: Apollo's Chariot. It starts out:
'The wolves are the first to sense it.'
And I'm immediately pulled into the writing. In one sentence we are taken to the cold, remote wilderness inhabited by the wolf where a foreboding and mystery are created - what do they sense?
He goes on to liken the 'ice-hoary Grise Fiord' as to 'buildings long-submerged under the ocean and covered with coral encrustations.' After reading that, I just sat back and imagined it. My friends, this is a book to be savoured!
Conclusion: don't approach this book like you would a text book for school, which is to say as a jug of information that you pour into your short-term memory. Yes, you will learn a lot about the atmosphere and weather but, for me, that's not the point. This book is a celebration that will engage your fascination and curiosity with the natural world. Just enjoy it!
April 2, 2022
Not without its flaws. In particular, there's little about modern atmospheric research, and everything could use more detail. Still, the book is fascinating. The prose is neither dry nor overdramatic.
> A typical weather report three billion years ago. First of all, the days were shorter. The Earth was spinning three times faster than it is now. A full day-night cycle was eight hours long, with a little more than four hours of darkness and four hours of pale sunlight because, even though UV levels were high, the young sun was fainter than today. You’d definitely have needed an oxygen mask — the atmosphere was almost entirely composed of carbon dioxide. And when the moon rose, you’d have known it. It was much closer to Earth and would have appeared 12 times larger than it does now. Today, the moon looks to be the same size as a dime held at arm’s length. Three billion years ago, it would have looked the size of a cantaloupe
> Today the atmosphere is composed of 13 gases, of which two dominate — oxygen at 21 percent and inert nitrogen at 78 percent. Those ratios are important. Take oxygen, for instance. Every single percentage point over 21 percent increases the likelihood of forest fires by 70 percent. If oxygen ever reached 25 percent, all land vegetation — from the high Arctic to the equatorial rainforests — would eventually burst into flame in a raging, planetary wildfire. Nitrogen also sits at a sweet spot. If nitrogen levels fell to 75 percent, the climate would spiral into a deep freeze from which the Earth would never recover.
> Carbon dioxide concentrations have been steadily decreasing since their highest levels in the primordial atmosphere, when it was the dominant gas. Gas newbies, oxygen and nitrogen, pushed out carbon dioxide to the extent that by the Cambrian period, 500 million years ago, carbon dioxide was already a trace gas, with concentrations at about 7,000 ppm. Concentrations of carbon dioxide decreased to 3,000 ppm during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, more than 60 million years ago. Then they fell lower, 34 million years ago, to 760 ppm. You can see where this is going. Today carbon dioxide concentrations stand at approximately 400 ppm. Over the long term, in a hundred million years or so, one of the most essential gases for the continued existence of life is going to run out.
> Earth’s atmosphere is pasted in an alarmingly thin layer — 99 percent of it lies within 18 miles of the surface.
> The ozone layer occupies the lower portion of the stratosphere, generally between 12 and 19 miles above Earth, depending on the time of year. Not only does it provide protection from ultraviolet light, but it also provides a thermal lid to the troposphere … So what happens in the ozone layer? When UV light strikes oxygen molecules in the lower stratosphere, it converts some of them into ozone molecules — a kind of hybrid oxygen, with three molecules instead of two. (Lightning strikes also produce ozone, which is why you can smell it in the air after storms.) These ozone molecules then absorb even more UV radiation from the sunlight, which splits them back to plain oxygen and releases a bit of heat at the same time. This cycle, called the Chapman cycle, is continuous, with oxygen molecules reacting with UV to create ozone molecules that split into oxygen molecules. The ozone layer is therefore considerably warmer than the air below and above it, sitting at about 0°C. … It acts as a thermal barrier, an inversion layer if you like, separating the frigid stratosphere from the equally frigid troposphere. That means that the ozone layer is the highest point that atmospheric convection currents can reach, and because convection is the engine of weather, driving everything from evening zephyrs to hurricanes, there is no weather in the stratosphere. The ozone layer’s double duty is to protect life from unmitigated UV radiation and to put a vertical limit on weather.
> At about 50 miles above the Earth’s surface, the mesosphere gives way to the thermosphere, which stretches another 160 miles above the Earth’s surface. The thermosphere is very hot — 500 to 2,000°C, though that is almost an abstract reading. There are too few particles per square yard to transfer any of that heat to objects moving through it. It couldn’t melt a snowflake. Otherwise the space station, which circles our planet well inside the thermosphere on an orbit between 200 and 240 miles above the Earth, would burn up in a few seconds.
> auroras are more than 40 miles above the Earth’s surface. Besides, there’s not enough atmosphere up there to carry sound waves. … the auroras have a younger brother called Steve (for strong thermal emission velocity enhancement). Discovered by aurora chasers in Alberta in 2017, Steve appears as a slightly curved vertical ribbon of white light in the sky that sometimes accompanies the northern lights. The ribbon is actually a stream of wildly hot gases (3,000°C), flowing at a speed of 770 miles per hour. Of course, Steve has been there all along; it’s just that new high-resolution night photography has teased him out of the background.
> the water vapor that makes up clouds is not like the mist from a sprayer nozzle or steam from a teakettle. Each droplet of water in a cloud is much, much smaller. It is only a millionth of a millimeter in diameter. Millions would fit into the period at the end of this sentence … a typical cloud — a puffy, small fair-weather cumulus like the one William Wordsworth wrote about in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” — measuring a few hundred yards cubed, contains only a bathtub’s worth of water.
> You can see the dew point and relative humidity in action when you watch the contrail of a high-flying jet. They are literally seeding clouds, providing the microscopic particles necessary for water vapor to cling to. Some days, if the relative humidity is low, the contrails evaporate instantly.
> Even on a hot summer day, balloonists with just a few thousand feet under their belts begin to feel the distinct chill of altitude. Ten miles up, the temperature never rises above -40°C … On average, the temperature drops 3°C for every 1,000 feet of altitude
> The tiny water droplets that form clouds are so small that their high surface tension prevents them from freezing. Cloud droplets remain liquid right down to -40°C. Only then do they freeze. (Unless they’re sprinkled with a little silver iodide … Cirrus clouds, at 18,000 feet and above, undergo their whole life cycle, from formation to evaporation, in subzero temperatures
> Drops of drizzle, which are less than 0.5 millimeters across (salt-grain size), have a terminal velocity of 4.5 miles per hour, while a large raindrop about five millimeters across (house-fly size) falls at the rate of 20 miles per hour. By comparison, a falling human being hurtles to the ground at a terminal velocity of about 125 miles per hour. … Raindrops are not teardrop shaped. The smallest, like those that make up drizzle or Scotch mist, are almost perfectly spherical. As they get larger, into the five millimeter range, their bottoms flatten out with air resistance and they assume a sort of bun-like profile. Raindrops larger than five millimeters get a dimple indent in the bottom of their buns and begin to look more and more like mushroom caps or fat parachutes. Nine millimeters is the upper limit for raindrop size. Any larger than that and they break up into smaller drops because, at higher terminal speeds, air resistance increases by the square of the velocity.
> fossils of raindrop impressions were discovered on a farm near Prieska, South Africa. A layer of fresh ash from a volcano preserved these traces as the ash transformed into rock. When the rock was dated, it turned out that this passing shower occurred 2.7 billion years ago. Scientists analyzing the tiny impact craters realized that they were more than a time capsule, they were a snapshot of the thickness of atmosphere during the Great Oxygenation Event. They estimated that the ancient raindrops measured 3.8 to 5.3 millimeters across and that, given the radius of the splashes, the atmospheric density was not that much different from today.
> during the Vietnam War: a covert offensive named Operation Popeye initiated in March 1967. For the next five years, the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron regularly seeded late-season monsoon clouds over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, extending the rainy period by 30 to 45 days and making life miserable for Vietcong soldiers using the trail. The slogan for the operation was “make mud, not war.” Five years after Operation Popeye was shelved in 1972, during the Environmental Modification Convention in Geneva, the U.S. signed the international treaty banning weather warfare. The treaty came into effect in 1978.
> North American Weather Consultants, got its start in 1950 and has been seeding clouds over Utah ever since. Today it is a flourishing company, and weather scientists in Utah estimate its efforts add about 250,000 acre-feet to state rivers and reservoirs annually. North American Weather Consultants is just one of many rainmaking enterprises.
> Hurricane John, a Methuselah among hurricanes, lasted 31 days in August and September 1994. John crossed the international dateline twice, becoming Typhoon John and then doubling back to become Hurricane John again. If a hurricane skips from the Atlantic basin into the Pacific basin, like Earl did in August 2004, the name has to change. Earl became Frank.
> Wherever that groove occurs, whether between the polar cell and the Ferrel cell or between the Ferrel cell and the Hadley cell, a jet stream sits directly on that border. That’s why there are two of them in each hemisphere.
> [FitzRoy] began to standardize the collection of weather data from 15 inland observation stations in England, linked by telegraph to his office. In 1859, after a national maritime disaster, he seized on the opportunity to design weather charts for what he called “forecasting the weather.” … He strayed off the scientific path even more wildly when he had FitzRoy storm glasses installed at quayside in every major British port. These devices were to be consulted by sailors before they ventured out, but they were merely glass cylinders filled with a cocktail of potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride, ethanol, camphor and water. This mixture occasionally produced crystals or floating particles, and these, FitzRoy insisted, foretold changes in the weather. In truth, they had no connection to the weather at all. Nonetheless, FitzRoy did have the distinction of publishing the first daily weather forecast in the Times of London
> The Coriolis effect causes a low to rotate counterclockwise and a high to rotate clockwise. In the southern hemisphere, the opposite holds true.
> the birth of a low-pressure cell in North America. Here, lows often form when a warm, southern high-pressure zone bumps into a cool, northern high-pressure zone. Due to the fact that high-pressure systems rotate clockwise, the winds at the northern edge of the southern system blow in the opposite direction to the winds at the southern edge of the northern system. They are like cogs grinding against each other. The only “solution” to this problem is a swirl rotating in the opposite direction, counterclockwise. This is the beginning of the cyclone, which becomes a low-pressure area.
> Slicing through a front vertically, in cross section, you immediately notice that it is wedge shaped. Cool air sinks, hugs the ground, so that when a cold air mass is advancing and encounters a warm air mass, it wedges under the warmer air and pushes it up and over the cold front. The rising air carries water vapor through the dew point, which then condenses, first creating clouds and then rain … Cold fronts have a steeper wedge and move faster than warm fronts, two reasons why their arrival is more abrupt. A cold front is always dramatic, creating thunderstorms in the summer and rain and snow in the winter. Warm fronts aren’t as aggressive; they are more gradual, and their approach is easy to read. Because they move slowly and have longer, more tapered wedge profiles, sometimes hundreds of miles long, it’s easier to predict a warm front’s arrival. The sequence of clouds that ride the approach of the warm front begin with high cirrus that gradually transition into altostratus, which are then replaced by nimbostratus as the clouds lower and thicken over the retreating wedge of cold air.
> The six seasons in the temperate zone are hibernal (winter), prevernal (late winter, early spring), vernal (spring), aestival (summer), serotinal (late summer) and autumn. I like these nuanced divisions, particularly prevernal and serotinal, because they capture something of the magic of seasonal transitions.
> According to paleoanthropologist Curtis W. Marean, a professor at Arizona State University, central Africa became virtually uninhabitable, and the only safe haven for our ancient ancestors was the sea coast of South Africa. Ocean levels had dropped more than 330 feet, but here, on the coast, plentiful marine life and edible shore plants tempered the hard, cold millennia. Even then, it was tough going. During a particularly severe period, as the glaciers advanced to their maximum extent, Marean postulates that our species dropped from more than 10,000 individuals to a just few hundred souls. This population choke point left a telltale genetic imprint in our genes.
> By the time the Wisconsin glaciation entered its most severe period, or last glacial maximum (LGM) about 26,000 years ago, our restless, nomadic species had spread to the far corners of the planet — from northern Europe and throughout Asia to Australia, as well as North and South America. Our colonization of the world took place during the worst ice age since the Andean-Saharan ice age, 460 million years before that. Over the cold, dark millenia of the Wisconsin ice age, we developed complex languages and culture and religion. The Lascaux cave paintings were executed 17,300 years ago at the height of the LGM. Rendered by flickering torchlight on limestone walls, these exquisite paintings of ice-age mammals are snapshots of a lost era when Europe was either covered by Arctic tundra or buried under glaciers. Two-mile-high cliffs of continental glaciers were parked just north of present-day London, England, a mere 435 miles north of Lascaux, and world sea levels were 330 feet lower than today.
> When the global melt was really underway, about 15,000 years ago, Greenland’s average temperature shot up by 16°C in a period of 50 years, perhaps fewer. And around 12,000 years ago, the definitive end of the Wisconsin, Greenland’s mean temperature skyrocketed by 15°C in one decade. As a result, the reset global temperature, the new “normal,” was probably 6°C warmer. Climatologists now refer to this as “abrupt climate change.”
> Paulus decided to give his war-weary troops a weeklong furlough to enjoy the sunny, warm weather. They had to wait for supplies anyway, and they had easily bested the Russian troops they’d encountered on the way. Surely they could afford a rest, especially as other German divisions were already engaging the Russians on the outskirts of Stalingrad. Almost certainly, the furlough cost the Germans Stalingrad. It gave the Russians just enough time to reinforce the city before Paulus joined the battle on September 7. By early October, the Germans controlled 80 percent of Stalingrad, but again the weather came to Russia’s rescue. Heavy October rains bogged down the German supply convoys and then, in a second stroke of meteorological fortune, the rain turned to snow … German soldiers who hadn’t been shot, captured or starved simply froze to death in their redoubts. If the summer weather hadn’t been so fine and if winter hadn’t arrived so early, it is likely the Germans would have gone on to take the rest of the country. Despite the terrible toll of the siege of Stalingrad, the Russians held on for 900 days, and Hitler’s occupation plans were ultimately thwarted.
> This “heat island” effect means that at night, a large city is usually 2.9°C warmer than the surrounding countryside. On calm nights, the temperature differential is often augmented over urban areas by a thermal inversion that traps pollution and heat in a dome … So the Summer of Love was not quite as pastoral for the citizens of impoverished urban neighborhoods with little access to air conditioning. Their ghettoes became claustrophobic ovens that eventually reached the ignition point in a series of riots that became known as the “long, hot summer.” Decades of inequity and oppression had reached the boiling point. Throughout June, riots broke out in Cincinnati, Buffalo, New York and Tampa. In July, there were even bigger riots in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Newark. Yet none of them compared to the insurrection that took place from July 23 to 28 in Detroit: the largest urban riot in American history, the 12th Street Riot. … Michigan Governor George Romney ordered in 8,000 National Guardsmen, and a few hours later President Lyndon Johnson mobilized 4,700 paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions. Even then, it would take another two days to restore order, by which time 43 people had died and 1,400 buildings were burned. In the two years following the riot, 193,000 citizens left the city. Detroit, once the headquarters of a prosperous automotive industry, became an economic disaster zone. The long, hot summer of 1967 had underwritten an entirely different scenario for the citizens of Detroit than it had for those in San Francisco.
> Earth’s magnetic field has decreased by 15 percent over the past 200 years, and the process appears to be accelerating at a rate of 5 percent per decade. This isn’t good. Earth’s magnetic field creates the Van Allen belt, a field of charged particles captured from the solar wind that wraps around the planet just beyond the exosphere
> A typical weather report three billion years ago. First of all, the days were shorter. The Earth was spinning three times faster than it is now. A full day-night cycle was eight hours long, with a little more than four hours of darkness and four hours of pale sunlight because, even though UV levels were high, the young sun was fainter than today. You’d definitely have needed an oxygen mask — the atmosphere was almost entirely composed of carbon dioxide. And when the moon rose, you’d have known it. It was much closer to Earth and would have appeared 12 times larger than it does now. Today, the moon looks to be the same size as a dime held at arm’s length. Three billion years ago, it would have looked the size of a cantaloupe
> Today the atmosphere is composed of 13 gases, of which two dominate — oxygen at 21 percent and inert nitrogen at 78 percent. Those ratios are important. Take oxygen, for instance. Every single percentage point over 21 percent increases the likelihood of forest fires by 70 percent. If oxygen ever reached 25 percent, all land vegetation — from the high Arctic to the equatorial rainforests — would eventually burst into flame in a raging, planetary wildfire. Nitrogen also sits at a sweet spot. If nitrogen levels fell to 75 percent, the climate would spiral into a deep freeze from which the Earth would never recover.
> Carbon dioxide concentrations have been steadily decreasing since their highest levels in the primordial atmosphere, when it was the dominant gas. Gas newbies, oxygen and nitrogen, pushed out carbon dioxide to the extent that by the Cambrian period, 500 million years ago, carbon dioxide was already a trace gas, with concentrations at about 7,000 ppm. Concentrations of carbon dioxide decreased to 3,000 ppm during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, more than 60 million years ago. Then they fell lower, 34 million years ago, to 760 ppm. You can see where this is going. Today carbon dioxide concentrations stand at approximately 400 ppm. Over the long term, in a hundred million years or so, one of the most essential gases for the continued existence of life is going to run out.
> Earth’s atmosphere is pasted in an alarmingly thin layer — 99 percent of it lies within 18 miles of the surface.
> The ozone layer occupies the lower portion of the stratosphere, generally between 12 and 19 miles above Earth, depending on the time of year. Not only does it provide protection from ultraviolet light, but it also provides a thermal lid to the troposphere … So what happens in the ozone layer? When UV light strikes oxygen molecules in the lower stratosphere, it converts some of them into ozone molecules — a kind of hybrid oxygen, with three molecules instead of two. (Lightning strikes also produce ozone, which is why you can smell it in the air after storms.) These ozone molecules then absorb even more UV radiation from the sunlight, which splits them back to plain oxygen and releases a bit of heat at the same time. This cycle, called the Chapman cycle, is continuous, with oxygen molecules reacting with UV to create ozone molecules that split into oxygen molecules. The ozone layer is therefore considerably warmer than the air below and above it, sitting at about 0°C. … It acts as a thermal barrier, an inversion layer if you like, separating the frigid stratosphere from the equally frigid troposphere. That means that the ozone layer is the highest point that atmospheric convection currents can reach, and because convection is the engine of weather, driving everything from evening zephyrs to hurricanes, there is no weather in the stratosphere. The ozone layer’s double duty is to protect life from unmitigated UV radiation and to put a vertical limit on weather.
> At about 50 miles above the Earth’s surface, the mesosphere gives way to the thermosphere, which stretches another 160 miles above the Earth’s surface. The thermosphere is very hot — 500 to 2,000°C, though that is almost an abstract reading. There are too few particles per square yard to transfer any of that heat to objects moving through it. It couldn’t melt a snowflake. Otherwise the space station, which circles our planet well inside the thermosphere on an orbit between 200 and 240 miles above the Earth, would burn up in a few seconds.
> auroras are more than 40 miles above the Earth’s surface. Besides, there’s not enough atmosphere up there to carry sound waves. … the auroras have a younger brother called Steve (for strong thermal emission velocity enhancement). Discovered by aurora chasers in Alberta in 2017, Steve appears as a slightly curved vertical ribbon of white light in the sky that sometimes accompanies the northern lights. The ribbon is actually a stream of wildly hot gases (3,000°C), flowing at a speed of 770 miles per hour. Of course, Steve has been there all along; it’s just that new high-resolution night photography has teased him out of the background.
> the water vapor that makes up clouds is not like the mist from a sprayer nozzle or steam from a teakettle. Each droplet of water in a cloud is much, much smaller. It is only a millionth of a millimeter in diameter. Millions would fit into the period at the end of this sentence … a typical cloud — a puffy, small fair-weather cumulus like the one William Wordsworth wrote about in his poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” — measuring a few hundred yards cubed, contains only a bathtub’s worth of water.
> You can see the dew point and relative humidity in action when you watch the contrail of a high-flying jet. They are literally seeding clouds, providing the microscopic particles necessary for water vapor to cling to. Some days, if the relative humidity is low, the contrails evaporate instantly.
> Even on a hot summer day, balloonists with just a few thousand feet under their belts begin to feel the distinct chill of altitude. Ten miles up, the temperature never rises above -40°C … On average, the temperature drops 3°C for every 1,000 feet of altitude
> The tiny water droplets that form clouds are so small that their high surface tension prevents them from freezing. Cloud droplets remain liquid right down to -40°C. Only then do they freeze. (Unless they’re sprinkled with a little silver iodide … Cirrus clouds, at 18,000 feet and above, undergo their whole life cycle, from formation to evaporation, in subzero temperatures
> Drops of drizzle, which are less than 0.5 millimeters across (salt-grain size), have a terminal velocity of 4.5 miles per hour, while a large raindrop about five millimeters across (house-fly size) falls at the rate of 20 miles per hour. By comparison, a falling human being hurtles to the ground at a terminal velocity of about 125 miles per hour. … Raindrops are not teardrop shaped. The smallest, like those that make up drizzle or Scotch mist, are almost perfectly spherical. As they get larger, into the five millimeter range, their bottoms flatten out with air resistance and they assume a sort of bun-like profile. Raindrops larger than five millimeters get a dimple indent in the bottom of their buns and begin to look more and more like mushroom caps or fat parachutes. Nine millimeters is the upper limit for raindrop size. Any larger than that and they break up into smaller drops because, at higher terminal speeds, air resistance increases by the square of the velocity.
> fossils of raindrop impressions were discovered on a farm near Prieska, South Africa. A layer of fresh ash from a volcano preserved these traces as the ash transformed into rock. When the rock was dated, it turned out that this passing shower occurred 2.7 billion years ago. Scientists analyzing the tiny impact craters realized that they were more than a time capsule, they were a snapshot of the thickness of atmosphere during the Great Oxygenation Event. They estimated that the ancient raindrops measured 3.8 to 5.3 millimeters across and that, given the radius of the splashes, the atmospheric density was not that much different from today.
> during the Vietnam War: a covert offensive named Operation Popeye initiated in March 1967. For the next five years, the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron regularly seeded late-season monsoon clouds over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, extending the rainy period by 30 to 45 days and making life miserable for Vietcong soldiers using the trail. The slogan for the operation was “make mud, not war.” Five years after Operation Popeye was shelved in 1972, during the Environmental Modification Convention in Geneva, the U.S. signed the international treaty banning weather warfare. The treaty came into effect in 1978.
> North American Weather Consultants, got its start in 1950 and has been seeding clouds over Utah ever since. Today it is a flourishing company, and weather scientists in Utah estimate its efforts add about 250,000 acre-feet to state rivers and reservoirs annually. North American Weather Consultants is just one of many rainmaking enterprises.
> Hurricane John, a Methuselah among hurricanes, lasted 31 days in August and September 1994. John crossed the international dateline twice, becoming Typhoon John and then doubling back to become Hurricane John again. If a hurricane skips from the Atlantic basin into the Pacific basin, like Earl did in August 2004, the name has to change. Earl became Frank.
> Wherever that groove occurs, whether between the polar cell and the Ferrel cell or between the Ferrel cell and the Hadley cell, a jet stream sits directly on that border. That’s why there are two of them in each hemisphere.
> [FitzRoy] began to standardize the collection of weather data from 15 inland observation stations in England, linked by telegraph to his office. In 1859, after a national maritime disaster, he seized on the opportunity to design weather charts for what he called “forecasting the weather.” … He strayed off the scientific path even more wildly when he had FitzRoy storm glasses installed at quayside in every major British port. These devices were to be consulted by sailors before they ventured out, but they were merely glass cylinders filled with a cocktail of potassium nitrate, ammonium chloride, ethanol, camphor and water. This mixture occasionally produced crystals or floating particles, and these, FitzRoy insisted, foretold changes in the weather. In truth, they had no connection to the weather at all. Nonetheless, FitzRoy did have the distinction of publishing the first daily weather forecast in the Times of London
> The Coriolis effect causes a low to rotate counterclockwise and a high to rotate clockwise. In the southern hemisphere, the opposite holds true.
> the birth of a low-pressure cell in North America. Here, lows often form when a warm, southern high-pressure zone bumps into a cool, northern high-pressure zone. Due to the fact that high-pressure systems rotate clockwise, the winds at the northern edge of the southern system blow in the opposite direction to the winds at the southern edge of the northern system. They are like cogs grinding against each other. The only “solution” to this problem is a swirl rotating in the opposite direction, counterclockwise. This is the beginning of the cyclone, which becomes a low-pressure area.
> Slicing through a front vertically, in cross section, you immediately notice that it is wedge shaped. Cool air sinks, hugs the ground, so that when a cold air mass is advancing and encounters a warm air mass, it wedges under the warmer air and pushes it up and over the cold front. The rising air carries water vapor through the dew point, which then condenses, first creating clouds and then rain … Cold fronts have a steeper wedge and move faster than warm fronts, two reasons why their arrival is more abrupt. A cold front is always dramatic, creating thunderstorms in the summer and rain and snow in the winter. Warm fronts aren’t as aggressive; they are more gradual, and their approach is easy to read. Because they move slowly and have longer, more tapered wedge profiles, sometimes hundreds of miles long, it’s easier to predict a warm front’s arrival. The sequence of clouds that ride the approach of the warm front begin with high cirrus that gradually transition into altostratus, which are then replaced by nimbostratus as the clouds lower and thicken over the retreating wedge of cold air.
> The six seasons in the temperate zone are hibernal (winter), prevernal (late winter, early spring), vernal (spring), aestival (summer), serotinal (late summer) and autumn. I like these nuanced divisions, particularly prevernal and serotinal, because they capture something of the magic of seasonal transitions.
> According to paleoanthropologist Curtis W. Marean, a professor at Arizona State University, central Africa became virtually uninhabitable, and the only safe haven for our ancient ancestors was the sea coast of South Africa. Ocean levels had dropped more than 330 feet, but here, on the coast, plentiful marine life and edible shore plants tempered the hard, cold millennia. Even then, it was tough going. During a particularly severe period, as the glaciers advanced to their maximum extent, Marean postulates that our species dropped from more than 10,000 individuals to a just few hundred souls. This population choke point left a telltale genetic imprint in our genes.
> By the time the Wisconsin glaciation entered its most severe period, or last glacial maximum (LGM) about 26,000 years ago, our restless, nomadic species had spread to the far corners of the planet — from northern Europe and throughout Asia to Australia, as well as North and South America. Our colonization of the world took place during the worst ice age since the Andean-Saharan ice age, 460 million years before that. Over the cold, dark millenia of the Wisconsin ice age, we developed complex languages and culture and religion. The Lascaux cave paintings were executed 17,300 years ago at the height of the LGM. Rendered by flickering torchlight on limestone walls, these exquisite paintings of ice-age mammals are snapshots of a lost era when Europe was either covered by Arctic tundra or buried under glaciers. Two-mile-high cliffs of continental glaciers were parked just north of present-day London, England, a mere 435 miles north of Lascaux, and world sea levels were 330 feet lower than today.
> When the global melt was really underway, about 15,000 years ago, Greenland’s average temperature shot up by 16°C in a period of 50 years, perhaps fewer. And around 12,000 years ago, the definitive end of the Wisconsin, Greenland’s mean temperature skyrocketed by 15°C in one decade. As a result, the reset global temperature, the new “normal,” was probably 6°C warmer. Climatologists now refer to this as “abrupt climate change.”
> Paulus decided to give his war-weary troops a weeklong furlough to enjoy the sunny, warm weather. They had to wait for supplies anyway, and they had easily bested the Russian troops they’d encountered on the way. Surely they could afford a rest, especially as other German divisions were already engaging the Russians on the outskirts of Stalingrad. Almost certainly, the furlough cost the Germans Stalingrad. It gave the Russians just enough time to reinforce the city before Paulus joined the battle on September 7. By early October, the Germans controlled 80 percent of Stalingrad, but again the weather came to Russia’s rescue. Heavy October rains bogged down the German supply convoys and then, in a second stroke of meteorological fortune, the rain turned to snow … German soldiers who hadn’t been shot, captured or starved simply froze to death in their redoubts. If the summer weather hadn’t been so fine and if winter hadn’t arrived so early, it is likely the Germans would have gone on to take the rest of the country. Despite the terrible toll of the siege of Stalingrad, the Russians held on for 900 days, and Hitler’s occupation plans were ultimately thwarted.
> This “heat island” effect means that at night, a large city is usually 2.9°C warmer than the surrounding countryside. On calm nights, the temperature differential is often augmented over urban areas by a thermal inversion that traps pollution and heat in a dome … So the Summer of Love was not quite as pastoral for the citizens of impoverished urban neighborhoods with little access to air conditioning. Their ghettoes became claustrophobic ovens that eventually reached the ignition point in a series of riots that became known as the “long, hot summer.” Decades of inequity and oppression had reached the boiling point. Throughout June, riots broke out in Cincinnati, Buffalo, New York and Tampa. In July, there were even bigger riots in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Newark. Yet none of them compared to the insurrection that took place from July 23 to 28 in Detroit: the largest urban riot in American history, the 12th Street Riot. … Michigan Governor George Romney ordered in 8,000 National Guardsmen, and a few hours later President Lyndon Johnson mobilized 4,700 paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions. Even then, it would take another two days to restore order, by which time 43 people had died and 1,400 buildings were burned. In the two years following the riot, 193,000 citizens left the city. Detroit, once the headquarters of a prosperous automotive industry, became an economic disaster zone. The long, hot summer of 1967 had underwritten an entirely different scenario for the citizens of Detroit than it had for those in San Francisco.
> Earth’s magnetic field has decreased by 15 percent over the past 200 years, and the process appears to be accelerating at a rate of 5 percent per decade. This isn’t good. Earth’s magnetic field creates the Van Allen belt, a field of charged particles captured from the solar wind that wraps around the planet just beyond the exosphere
August 21, 2019
Various facts, stories, and even speculations regarding our atmosphere, the process of its formation as well as clouds, weather and how changes in its chemical construction can drastically impact conditions.
There are side trips into all kinds of science: oceanography especially ocean currents that effect the climate as well as the formation of storms. Plate tectonics and the formation of mountains. Paleoanthropology or how weather drove/encouraged migration of hominids. Then there are the rainmakers and the government investigation of using artificially driven weather as a weapon of war (basically everyone agreed it was a bad idea). History of Greek and Roman gods of the directional winds. Seasons. Weather on other planets and how it could easily be here and why it's not. Tropical and glacial intervals of various lengths over thousands, even millions of years. Effects of climate change and what are the 'tipping points' that can drive the Earth into an ice age or tropical wave. A short view into a who's who in meteorological instruments and weather classification systems like Saffir-Simpson (hurricane strength); Beaufort (wind speed); and Fujita (tornado intensity). And all with a wry - maybe even dry - sense of humor and his own personal experiences with the weather he loves.
A lot of information in a rather short book when you look at what Dewberry covered. A nice feature is an appendix that lists conversions for all the metric measurements used in the body of the book for those who are still clinging to Fahrenheit and miles. Short acknowledgments, a selected biography and index completes it.
A very comprehensive overview. Certainly a good choice for the curious without needed the in-depth details.
Will end this review with one of the multitude of quotes interspersed between sections: "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." by Robert A. Heinlein.
2019-113
There are side trips into all kinds of science: oceanography especially ocean currents that effect the climate as well as the formation of storms. Plate tectonics and the formation of mountains. Paleoanthropology or how weather drove/encouraged migration of hominids. Then there are the rainmakers and the government investigation of using artificially driven weather as a weapon of war (basically everyone agreed it was a bad idea). History of Greek and Roman gods of the directional winds. Seasons. Weather on other planets and how it could easily be here and why it's not. Tropical and glacial intervals of various lengths over thousands, even millions of years. Effects of climate change and what are the 'tipping points' that can drive the Earth into an ice age or tropical wave. A short view into a who's who in meteorological instruments and weather classification systems like Saffir-Simpson (hurricane strength); Beaufort (wind speed); and Fujita (tornado intensity). And all with a wry - maybe even dry - sense of humor and his own personal experiences with the weather he loves.
A lot of information in a rather short book when you look at what Dewberry covered. A nice feature is an appendix that lists conversions for all the metric measurements used in the body of the book for those who are still clinging to Fahrenheit and miles. Short acknowledgments, a selected biography and index completes it.
A very comprehensive overview. Certainly a good choice for the curious without needed the in-depth details.
Will end this review with one of the multitude of quotes interspersed between sections: "Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get." by Robert A. Heinlein.
2019-113
February 20, 2023
It took me a long time to read this book - to a) get around to it, and then b) to get through it - but that is entirely on me, and not the book. (My reading has been horribly impaired the past few years (i.e., life sucks).) This was a fascinating whirlwind ride (see what I did there?) (yes, obviously my review writing is impaired as well) through the eighteen miles that separates you, sitting there reading this, from the cold vacuum of space. Eighteen miles - about the distance of my previous commute; it's not a great deal standing between life on Earth and an absence thereof.
And frequently, somewhere on the planet, in addition to protecting us, that thin shield is also trying to kill us.
It was these two aspects to our atmosphere - its fragility and its occasional viciousness - that really brought home to me how rare Earth is, how unlikely. This breathable atmosphere which makes life possible is the end result of an evolution not unlike humanity's, in which a different path taken at any point could have meant this place looked more like Mars than a blue marble. The odds against a similar evolution taking place on another planet feel a lot steeper now that I have a better understanding (but, I insist, it's not impossible).
This is a terrific book, written so that even someone as non-scientific as me can keep up, without anything being dumbed down, and filled with stories of those who have adventured in meteorology. Highly recommended.
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
And frequently, somewhere on the planet, in addition to protecting us, that thin shield is also trying to kill us.
It was these two aspects to our atmosphere - its fragility and its occasional viciousness - that really brought home to me how rare Earth is, how unlikely. This breathable atmosphere which makes life possible is the end result of an evolution not unlike humanity's, in which a different path taken at any point could have meant this place looked more like Mars than a blue marble. The odds against a similar evolution taking place on another planet feel a lot steeper now that I have a better understanding (but, I insist, it's not impossible).
This is a terrific book, written so that even someone as non-scientific as me can keep up, without anything being dumbed down, and filled with stories of those who have adventured in meteorology. Highly recommended.
The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.
September 14, 2018
I received a free digital copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I am a massive weather nerd and read a lot of books about weather. If you are just dipping into weather and like personal anecdotes mixed with history mixed with science you will enjoy this book. Definitely more than I did. I found the mixture confusing - like none of the thoughts were finished. It wasn’t a book about exactly how weather works but there are explanations of some phenomena. It’s not a personal account of relationship with weather but sometimes there are tales of that nature. It’s a funny one. The version I received had no illustrations so no big beautiful weather systems, but also wordy descriptions of concepts like Hadley cells and Ferrel cells that are easy to explain with a picture. The edition I received also was missing all the minus signs next to negative temperatures, which made for some odd sentences. Some of the prose also feels awkwardly contrived. I had a real urge to edit this book as I read it and I really wanted sources for some of the more dramatic claims. Not the book I was hoping for. I can’t really imagine the target audience.
I am a massive weather nerd and read a lot of books about weather. If you are just dipping into weather and like personal anecdotes mixed with history mixed with science you will enjoy this book. Definitely more than I did. I found the mixture confusing - like none of the thoughts were finished. It wasn’t a book about exactly how weather works but there are explanations of some phenomena. It’s not a personal account of relationship with weather but sometimes there are tales of that nature. It’s a funny one. The version I received had no illustrations so no big beautiful weather systems, but also wordy descriptions of concepts like Hadley cells and Ferrel cells that are easy to explain with a picture. The edition I received also was missing all the minus signs next to negative temperatures, which made for some odd sentences. Some of the prose also feels awkwardly contrived. I had a real urge to edit this book as I read it and I really wanted sources for some of the more dramatic claims. Not the book I was hoping for. I can’t really imagine the target audience.
June 2, 2020
Maybe it’s a life spent watching the skies for signs of tornadoes talking, but few everyday things strike me as more dramatic than the drama overhead — the goings-on of this ocean of air in which we live. 18 Miles is an enthusiast’s guide to understanding a little of what goes on above, and its effect on us — past, present, and future. Dewdney begins by exploring the various layers of the atmosphere, then examines its internal drama: clouds, wind, precipitation, storms, and more. The book wanders a bit toward the end, reviewing moments in which weather has influenced history. 18 Miles is unusual for a science book in that its subject has been of interest to all humans, at all times and places — and that universal interest is expressed here through the frequent and much-appreciation inclusion of poetry and art. The author’s own prose is artful in itself, often stirring the spirit as well as stimulating the mind. When I looked up the author to see what else he’d written, I was not overmuch surprised to see that he’s published volumes of poetry. Although it lost strength as it progressed, there’s much to appreciate in 18 Miles.
January 19, 2023
Imagine your grandfather was a meterologist but also a lover of stories. One day he sat you down and decided to tell you everything he knew about the weather. He'd tell you about how when his right knee swells up it's going to rain, how Wordsworth "wandered lonely as a cloud", but also about how the Chinook is a Föhn wind formed in the rain shadow of the Rockies by an adiabatic process and the katabasis of the dry air descending the mountain. Imagine as you sat down he launched into his story and he didn't stop for breath or break for about 6 hours. Once he'd said it all, he leaned back into his chair with a big grin on his face and went to sleep, where he dreamed of his first summer's afternoon on the lake. That's basically what this book is. It's meandering and full of segues. It's a mixture of feeling and fact. Some of it is incredibly informative, some of it is enjoyable, and some of it is pointless and boring. There's a hell of a lot of poetry in it as well, which personally I like but could see how many would be annoyed by it. The presence of all that poetry is explained by the fact that Dewdney is a poet himself, arguably he's more of a poet than a science writer.
Unfortunately, like many grandfathers, Poppa Dewdney sometimes gets things wrong. The two most notable mistakes I found in the book were really quite strange and also to me said the book hadn't been edited properly.
The first was when talking about Operation Barbarossa and the German inability to handle the winter in Russia, Dewdney puts in parentheses after Barbarossa (red barber). How in the hell did he get that? It's Red Beard! The operation was named after Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor and a very successful German ruler who conquered much of Europe. Barbarossa's name came from his red beard, the reason his moniker was Italian is said to show how much the Italian crown meant to him. Red Barber? It doesn't even make sense. Unless Dewdney thought that the operation was to snip the Red Army at the knees. This inaccuracy threw me in a strange way, I just don't expect a published book, printed on paper, with a shiny cover, and an index and all that stuff, to have such a gross error. Just when I was recovering from that, bang, there's another one.
According to Dewdney the island of Réunion is in the South Pacific. It's just not. It's about 10,000km from the South Pacific in the Indian ocean, and not even the Eastern part of the Indian Ocean. It's off Madagascar, so pretty much Africa. What makes this mistake particularly egregious is that the paragraph is about plate tectonics and the role the Himalayas plays in the weather systems of both local areas and the whole globe. So Dewdney knows the island must be near India because he's using it to segue into a talk about India. What's going on here?
I don't want to detract from the rest of the book because there's some really good stuff in there but when you're making mistakes like these I start to question all the other "facts" that I'm learning.
In some weird moment of serendipity I encountered a new phrase twice in a single day.
According to Dewdney, Australians call a heavy rain a frog strangler . News to me! Maybe those with Australian grandparents could correct me. Anyway that's the first time I've ever heard seen the phrase. That very day I was listening to Radio National (Australia's NPR) on my way into work and they had Abe Powell from the Santa Barbara Bucket Bridgade, a volunteer organisation that's helping clear roadblocks and build sandbanks etc, on the show. California is under severe weather conditions, a system of atmospheric rivers have been hitting the state since late December causing flooding etc. So this fella from the Bucket Brigade gets on National Australian radio and talks about the landslides and destabilisation of the hills in Santa Barbara. The host Hamish McDonald asks Abe to describe the conditions because Atmospheric river is hard to conceptualise and Abe goes and says
"Well in the South they call it a Froag Strangler"
Mcdonald splutters.. "A what?"
"A frog strangler."
I've spent the past two days wondering if by in the South he meant Australia or he meant the south of the USA. See he put on an accent the first time he said Froag Strangler and it just couldn't have been an Aussie accent, surely it couldn't. But maybe Abe is great at handing buckets along the line and not stand-up comedy. Maybe it was his best Aussie accent. Either way I'll never forgive Hamish McDonald for not following up. If you want to hear what I'm talking about in action you can go to this Radio National link, start listening at about 1:12
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/california-braces-for-more-wet-weather-and-potential-flooding/101860204
I'd love a second opinion.
Unfortunately, like many grandfathers, Poppa Dewdney sometimes gets things wrong. The two most notable mistakes I found in the book were really quite strange and also to me said the book hadn't been edited properly.
The first was when talking about Operation Barbarossa and the German inability to handle the winter in Russia, Dewdney puts in parentheses after Barbarossa (red barber). How in the hell did he get that? It's Red Beard! The operation was named after Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emperor and a very successful German ruler who conquered much of Europe. Barbarossa's name came from his red beard, the reason his moniker was Italian is said to show how much the Italian crown meant to him. Red Barber? It doesn't even make sense. Unless Dewdney thought that the operation was to snip the Red Army at the knees. This inaccuracy threw me in a strange way, I just don't expect a published book, printed on paper, with a shiny cover, and an index and all that stuff, to have such a gross error. Just when I was recovering from that, bang, there's another one.
According to Dewdney the island of Réunion is in the South Pacific. It's just not. It's about 10,000km from the South Pacific in the Indian ocean, and not even the Eastern part of the Indian Ocean. It's off Madagascar, so pretty much Africa. What makes this mistake particularly egregious is that the paragraph is about plate tectonics and the role the Himalayas plays in the weather systems of both local areas and the whole globe. So Dewdney knows the island must be near India because he's using it to segue into a talk about India. What's going on here?
I don't want to detract from the rest of the book because there's some really good stuff in there but when you're making mistakes like these I start to question all the other "facts" that I'm learning.
In some weird moment of serendipity I encountered a new phrase twice in a single day.
According to Dewdney, Australians call a heavy rain a frog strangler . News to me! Maybe those with Australian grandparents could correct me. Anyway that's the first time I've ever heard seen the phrase. That very day I was listening to Radio National (Australia's NPR) on my way into work and they had Abe Powell from the Santa Barbara Bucket Bridgade, a volunteer organisation that's helping clear roadblocks and build sandbanks etc, on the show. California is under severe weather conditions, a system of atmospheric rivers have been hitting the state since late December causing flooding etc. So this fella from the Bucket Brigade gets on National Australian radio and talks about the landslides and destabilisation of the hills in Santa Barbara. The host Hamish McDonald asks Abe to describe the conditions because Atmospheric river is hard to conceptualise and Abe goes and says
"Well in the South they call it a Froag Strangler"
Mcdonald splutters.. "A what?"
"A frog strangler."
I've spent the past two days wondering if by in the South he meant Australia or he meant the south of the USA. See he put on an accent the first time he said Froag Strangler and it just couldn't have been an Aussie accent, surely it couldn't. But maybe Abe is great at handing buckets along the line and not stand-up comedy. Maybe it was his best Aussie accent. Either way I'll never forgive Hamish McDonald for not following up. If you want to hear what I'm talking about in action you can go to this Radio National link, start listening at about 1:12
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/california-braces-for-more-wet-weather-and-potential-flooding/101860204
I'd love a second opinion.
March 1, 2022
im either SUCH a nerd for meteorology or this book is really really well done. perfect balance of science, personal anecdotes and history that make the concepts easy to understand and remember
Read
March 16, 2019Absolutely fascinating
I have always loved weather since our sixth grade went to the local military base and saw a weather balloon launched.
It makes me even more determined to do what I can to save the earth.
I have always loved weather since our sixth grade went to the local military base and saw a weather balloon launched.
It makes me even more determined to do what I can to save the earth.
January 17, 2021
Watch a detailed review along with my favorite ideas and takeaways at:
https://youtu.be/AbtU9Q0Tk5A
https://youtu.be/AbtU9Q0Tk5A
April 26, 2021
This book dragged on in the beginning and kind of wandered elsewhere in the end.
But i enjoyed the content in the middle: chapters 3-8
I would have liked more information about the weather and more of the science behind it. I felt like there were too many stories being told which went on and on and only slightly touched on weather at the end of them, and i felt that that caused the book to stray away from the main concept.
But i enjoyed the content in the middle: chapters 3-8
I would have liked more information about the weather and more of the science behind it. I felt like there were too many stories being told which went on and on and only slightly touched on weather at the end of them, and i felt that that caused the book to stray away from the main concept.
February 11, 2019
Lots of interesting weather stuff and much more from a fellow weather geek since elementary school. So you get bios of everyone who discovered anything/created measurements for all sorts of weather phenomena and precursors. You get lots of geology and a host of other sciences that impact our atmosphere. And a chapter on climate change. But lacking a bit in coherence.
October 28, 2019
Again, caught perusing the science section at my local library, and I found book with a stunning cover. Obviously, I had to take it home with me. It was called 18 Miles by Christopher Dewdney.
I have always been interested in the intricacies of weather and this book was all about weather, from rain to snow to hail to thunderstorms to hurricanes. I truly enjoyed this book. I even took my time reading it allowing myself to enjoy it. Sometimes, because I am so pressed to return books to the library, I rarely take time to savor a book. This time, I hit my final renewal and enjoyed the book.
What I loved about the book is how committed he is to the topic; despite the fact he actually teaches writing not science at York University. Such passion and commitment to a subject different than what you teach is very impressive. And yes, I know you can love two things. I love how detailed he was about each topic, including poems, short stories, quotes, and so on. I really enjoyed learning about how the different wind systems came to being via Beaufort and Fujita. I loved learning about hail, terrifying hail. I had no idea that hail has concentric circles in it like tree rings. I also did not know that tornadoes have faster windspeeds than hurricanes. Having experienced them both, I can honestly say they are both awful. But now, I am a smidge more scared of tornadoes.
The only thing I did not like about the book is some of the history became monotonous for me. But, I prefer learning the mechanics of how storms work or how systems were developed rather than long lived stories about failed military careers or whatever. I also did not enjoy all of the poems, but I understand that those may appeal to others and will not judge too harshly.
I highly recommend this book, it was incredibly fascinating and it is short, which is helpful to those busy folks, like myself.
Scoring:
Content: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
Meets Objectives: 5/5
Creativity: 4/5
I have always been interested in the intricacies of weather and this book was all about weather, from rain to snow to hail to thunderstorms to hurricanes. I truly enjoyed this book. I even took my time reading it allowing myself to enjoy it. Sometimes, because I am so pressed to return books to the library, I rarely take time to savor a book. This time, I hit my final renewal and enjoyed the book.
What I loved about the book is how committed he is to the topic; despite the fact he actually teaches writing not science at York University. Such passion and commitment to a subject different than what you teach is very impressive. And yes, I know you can love two things. I love how detailed he was about each topic, including poems, short stories, quotes, and so on. I really enjoyed learning about how the different wind systems came to being via Beaufort and Fujita. I loved learning about hail, terrifying hail. I had no idea that hail has concentric circles in it like tree rings. I also did not know that tornadoes have faster windspeeds than hurricanes. Having experienced them both, I can honestly say they are both awful. But now, I am a smidge more scared of tornadoes.
The only thing I did not like about the book is some of the history became monotonous for me. But, I prefer learning the mechanics of how storms work or how systems were developed rather than long lived stories about failed military careers or whatever. I also did not enjoy all of the poems, but I understand that those may appeal to others and will not judge too harshly.
I highly recommend this book, it was incredibly fascinating and it is short, which is helpful to those busy folks, like myself.
Scoring:
Content: 5/5
Structure: 5/5
Meets Objectives: 5/5
Creativity: 4/5
November 14, 2024
4.5 stars because it goes on for a bit too long, but otherwise I loved it. This book is everything. Meteorology, geology, history, natural history and evolution, astronomy, mythology… it never gets boring because there’s just so much. The prose is beautiful— some of the scenes Dewdney describes, it feels like I’m there. You can tell that Dewdney is a poet. The writing is concise enough that it doesn’t drag, but not so much that it leaves you wanting more. Except for when he said some concerning things about Earth’s magnetic field and then did not elaborate.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t talk very much about recent climate change, which is honestly kind of refreshing. A lot of science books end on a depressing note, but Dewdney keeps a hopeful tone throughout.
The book is well-written and well-researched. Dewdney put a ton of effort into it and it shows. 18 Miles is a masterwork.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t talk very much about recent climate change, which is honestly kind of refreshing. A lot of science books end on a depressing note, but Dewdney keeps a hopeful tone throughout.
The book is well-written and well-researched. Dewdney put a ton of effort into it and it shows. 18 Miles is a masterwork.
January 9, 2021
This book is an incredible description of what we take for granted every day: the air we breathe. Taking you on a detailed journey through the layers of our atmosphere, the author exposes you to phenomena both familiar and seemingly other-worldly. From balls of lightning floating along the ground, to hail as big as a watermelon, we get to understand what forces drive the weather on Earth, both today and 4 billion years ago.
From climate catastrophe to the very changing of magnetic north, this book also shows how these weather and geological systems are changing Earth right now.
Would recommend to anyone with an interest in this planet and how it works.
From climate catastrophe to the very changing of magnetic north, this book also shows how these weather and geological systems are changing Earth right now.
Would recommend to anyone with an interest in this planet and how it works.
August 30, 2018
Excellent and entertaining look at the atmosphere
I enjoyed this book. Christopher Dewdney wrote a fascinating and accessible book about Earth’s atmosphere and weather, including a fair amount of history. He uses a conversational tone but with what I felt to be some haughtiness, but this didn’t significantly affect my enjoyment of the book. I found this book to be much better than Windswept by Marq de Villiers. I recommend Dewdney’s effort for anyone interested in science.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.
I enjoyed this book. Christopher Dewdney wrote a fascinating and accessible book about Earth’s atmosphere and weather, including a fair amount of history. He uses a conversational tone but with what I felt to be some haughtiness, but this didn’t significantly affect my enjoyment of the book. I found this book to be much better than Windswept by Marq de Villiers. I recommend Dewdney’s effort for anyone interested in science.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley for review purposes.
November 10, 2018
I received a print ARC as part of the ECW Insiders program, formerly the Shelf Monkey program.
Dewdney nicely balances technical information and more informal, often personal stories. (The chapter detailing how certain historical events were directly influenced by weather is particularly convincing.) At times I was left wanting more: often, I'd become engrossed in an anecdote only to see it segue into another subject! Nevertheless, the book is thorough and quite enjoyable as an introductory survey of weather.
September 15, 2019
This book is amazing.
I started this book a little sceptical if it would be a book I was interested in. I quickly found out that I not only loved the various chapters but that I loved the writing. Christopher Dewdneys writing(the sprinkles of anecdotes and funny remarks) combined with facts presented and the love of reading generally really make you fly through this book.
Gift your eyeballs this book not once but definitely twice. You are bound laugh, wonder and learn a lot in the best way possible.
I started this book a little sceptical if it would be a book I was interested in. I quickly found out that I not only loved the various chapters but that I loved the writing. Christopher Dewdneys writing(the sprinkles of anecdotes and funny remarks) combined with facts presented and the love of reading generally really make you fly through this book.
Gift your eyeballs this book not once but definitely twice. You are bound laugh, wonder and learn a lot in the best way possible.
November 8, 2019
Dewdney covers a lot of territory here, from the outer limits of our atmosphere to the Earth's core, from ancient myth to modern battles whose outcome was influenced by weather. And, of course, the challenges of our current climate change situation, though this book isn't heavily focused on that.
We Canadians get every kind of weather, and if you'd like to understand where it comes from instead of just complaining about it, this is a great book for you. The science and statistics are here, but always delivered in a very approachable style.
We Canadians get every kind of weather, and if you'd like to understand where it comes from instead of just complaining about it, this is a great book for you. The science and statistics are here, but always delivered in a very approachable style.
March 6, 2019
Dewdney does a really good job in covering much of the fascinating features of the atmosphere and everything that it touches. He goes a bit too much into the poetry and literature and mythology for my taste -- but that's just me.
If you're looking for an insightful tour of our atmosphere, this is a good place to start.
If you're looking for an insightful tour of our atmosphere, this is a good place to start.
January 4, 2019
... who knew that a cross-section of a hailstone resembles a cross-section of a tree? ~ This delightful book explores that airy realm above us, sky. Pleasing anecdotes & insightful gems make the ‘learning’ easy.
January 9, 2019
I love learning about weather and about earth’s magnificent history regarding climate and the forces that shape weather patterns and phenomenons. This book has just the right amount of science, history, and anecdotal stories to make it a fun read.
March 26, 2019
Very enjoyable - an interesting mix of science, history, personal anecdotes and even some linguistics. As another reviewer noted, some of the concepts are a little hard to grasp without diagrams, but for the most part this isn't an issue. Recommended.
April 28, 2019
A wide-ranging, occasionally wandering book, well-written and very accessible. The scale of the topic is huge, but Dewdney does a great job of bringing it within our grasp. Looking forward to reading others by him.
June 6, 2019
I liked the beginning of this book better than the end. The author was great with fun facts and numbers about the atmosphere. The chapter with all the poetry about the seasons lost me. Also, it would have been helpful to have a conversion to degrees F, instead of just the Celsius reading.
February 13, 2021
As someone with only a passing knowledge of the atmosphere and it’s effect on weather, I thought this book did a great job of breaking down the complex motions of our atmosphere. Written in plain language that doesn’t skip on details.
March 7, 2019
Too whimsical, too much poetry, too many biographical anecdotes.
December 20, 2019
Informative and entertaining
November 23, 2020
It was a hard book to put down. A fascinating story about weather and climate and an interesting history of our planet and life itself. It should be a must read for everyone!
August 6, 2021
Loved this book easy to read and understand for the most part. Weather for the lay people and good understanding of the history of earth and our weather / natural history and environment
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