Fertig gelesen: Blue Machine

Helen Czerski wrote a book. Blue Machine: How the ocean shapes our world occupies the weird space between memoir, travel blog and science outreach.

In the middle of this she manages to explain the biggest machine on our planet: The collection of oceans in which the continents are embedded. But also the deep love of science, the desire to understand how our world functions, and the connection between all people than live on it.

The book is the story of a person who literally travelled the world, from the poles to the equator, and from the surface of the oceans to their dark cold depths. It also is the story of a physicist with knowledge about bubbles and how they work, and how that line of research led her around the world, and into the oceans. It also is a gentle introduction into climate science, showing us how the ocean can be seen as a machine that manages the thermals of the planet, capturing and transporting heat, feeding the weather machine in the atmosphere with energy and water vapor, and also capturing and releasing carbon dioxide.

Following her travels and experiences, we learn about the vertical layering structure of the oceans, about the ability of water to capture fantastic amounts of energy, about currents and how they transport water, energy, nutrients and life around the world, and how humans have been living off all this on the surface of something much greater, deeper and larger than we ever imagined.

This is an amazing and entertaining book that shares a unique and personal perspective of our world, and at the same time manages to convey how something this vast and enormous can be at the same time fragile and in need our or care and understanding.

Strongly recommended read, well worth the time.

“Blue Machine ”, Helen Czerski, EUR 15.62