Book Review
Why the Wind Blows: A History of Weather and Global Warming by Matthys Levy
I recently had the opportunity to review a book Why the Wind Blows: A History of Weather and Global Warming by Matthys Levy. Mr. Levy is a distinguished civil engineer with a background in lecturing and brings forth a methodical approach in presenting the reader a simple understanding as to some principals surrounding the hows and whys of weather. By building upon key weather fundamentals, the author seamlessly blends the weather theme into a dialogue of how it has shaped the history of human civilization over the years (such as the search for the Northwest Passage). Combining weather essential facts and its impact on human civilization sets the optimal stage in addressing today’s growing concern of global warming; Mr. Levy offers some interesting solutions (wind, solar, biomass) to help conserve and sustain our environment in light of this mounting predicament.
Here are some intriguing facts mentioned in Mr. Levy’s book:
- The earth takes about 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds to complete its orbit around the sun — leap years were introduced every four years to counter balance the fractions of a day in earth’s orbit
- The term hurricane is used to describe a tropical depression which grows into a monster storm in the Atlantic Ocean. Elsewhere, these storms are referred as Typhoons in the Pacific Ocean, and in the Indian Ocean and the vicinities of South East Asia are referred as Cyclones.
- The ten hottest years in historical records have occured since 1990.
Filled full of useful information, Why the Wind Blows: A History of Weather and Global Warming is a book worth recommending. The only drawback to Mr. Levy’s fascinating book is reference material, there is little in the way of it and therefore requires the reader to take the author’s material at face value.