Blue Machine: How the Ocean Shapes Our World

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The world needs a 'David Attenborough for physics' and Helen Czerski is a prime contender - she's brilliant, clear, passionate, modern and inspiring. Emma Freud, BBC Radio 4 Loose Ends Helen Czerski's absorbing Storm in a Teacup stands head and shoulders above other popular science books. Irish TImes That being said, if your only destination is an enjoyable read with endless interesting facts, a lifetime of knowledge, and an enthusiasm for her research that is contagious, this book is perfect for you. Through stories of history, culture, and animals, she explains how water temperature, salinity, gravity, and the movement of Earth’s tectonic plates all interact in a complex dance, supporting life at the smallest scale—plankton—and the largest—giant sea turtles, whales, humankind. From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves, to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she introduces the messengers, passengers, and voyagers that rely on interlinked systems of vast currents, invisible ocean walls, and underwater waterfalls.

I absolutely concede there are scientific processes and chemical composition and reactions in the ocean that are reliable, verifiable and replicable. That doesn’t make it a machine. Maybe what she meant was power or energy. If each wave was a machine, or a heart was a machine, or a brain was a machine, then we could replicate them and there would be exact copies we could master and control and evolution shows us time and time again that is a delusion. The Blue Machine is a point of departure, a map for further exploration. Not since reading The Diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson have I read a book as timely, salient, and informative. The Blue Machine is a point of departure, a map for further exploration. Not since reading The Diversity of Life by E.O. Wilson have I read a book as timely, salient, and informative. Todd L Capson, ScienceLively and engrossing [...] Alongside her vivid portrayal of waters sliding over one another, colliding, mixing and turning into ice or water vapour, she explains how the living beings within the sea also form part of the 'blue machine' [...] [Cerzski's personal experience of both Polynesian canoes off Hawaii and ice floes near the North Pole is not icing on the cake but part of the argument of this excellent and important book." Helen Czerski's fascinating new book casts the ocean as an extraordinary giant engine, and helps us grasp its complex physicsand its key role in climate change Graham Lawton, New Scientist An extraordinary & captivating read on oceans, revealing their profound influence on our world. Czerski's approach to oceanography is extensively eye-opening yet accessible, making this book an essential read for everyone to understand the intricate interplay between the ocean, climate, ecosystems, & human civilisation.

A beautifully written guide to the seas reveals the hidden complexity of their role in moving energy around the Earth.... A brisk tour of the oceans, like a sleek catamaran skipping over the waves. Deftly harnessing the trade winds of history and geography, guiding us through eddies and currents of anecdote, [Czerski] leaves us with an understanding of the complexity of the oceans. Awash with fascinating facts. Helen Czerski writes with authority, passion and an easy conversational style . You will want to be out there on the ice and ocean with her. I loved it. Hugh Aldersey-Williams, author of Tide For serious sea enthusiasts or budding marine biologists then this book will be the perfect addition to your shelf. For me, it just didn't hit the spot that I was hoping for.

Advance Praise

What happened with the advent of fossil fuels: “This great synthesis of human and nature was about to be jettisoned by economics, technology and the demands of convenience. The most fundamental aspect of this upheaval wasn’t the shift from wood to metal, or from free wind to expensive coal, or from the irregularity of weather to timetabled reliability, although those were important. It was the change from voyaging with nature to voyaging despite nature. For a steamship is just a mechanism. Apart from the need to keep shoveling coal into its boilers, you could pretty much switch a steamship on, point it in any direction and walk away while your ship moved itself around. The centuries of collaboration between humans and nature were over.” You could really conclude that this just didn’t apply to ships. The advent of mass utilization of fossil fuels severed the connections between humans and nature allowing us the illusion that we could impose our will, our insatiable quest for material abundance, to bulldoze, air condition the earth into submission to suit our needs and comfort without considering the repercussions on the earth’s natural systems. That illusion is now coming to an end. Helen Czerski's fascinating new book casts the ocean as an extraordinary giant engine, and helps us grasp its complex physics and its key role in climate change" Humans no longer needed to connect to the ocean mentally in the same way and so the habit was lost. Understanding the intricacies of the blue machine is no longer a matter of raw survival now that radio, radar, GPS, satellite phones, weather forecasts… AIS [Automatic Identification] and distress signals are taken for granted. THE TIMES SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR: 'This beautifully written, sweeping guide shows how the deep movement of the seas have ruled our lives in unexpected ways over millennia.' BOOK OF THE WEEK: This beautifully written, sweeping guide shows how the deep movement of the seas have ruled our lives in unexpected ways over millennia. Tom Whipple, The Times