Our Affair with El Niño
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-12622-7 (ISBN)
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Until 1997, few people had heard of the seasonal current that Peruvians nicknamed El Nino. But when meteorologists linked it to devastating floods in California, severe droughts in Indonesia, and strange weather everywhere, its name became entrenched in the common parlance faster than a typhoon making landfall. Bumper stickers appeared bearing the phrase "Don't blame me; blame El Nino." Stockbrokers muttered "El Nino" when the market became erratic. What's behind this fascinating natural phenomenon, and how did our perceptions of it change? In this captivating book, renowned oceanographer George Philander engages readers in lucid and stimulating discussions of the scientific, political, economic and cultural developments that shaped our perceptions of this force of nature. The book begins by outlining the history of El Nino, an innocuous current that appears off the coast of Peru around Christmastime--its name refers to the Child Jesus--and originally was welcomed as a blessing. It goes on to explore how our perceptions of El Nino were transformed, not because the phenomenon changed, but because we did.
Philander argues persuasively that familiarity with the different facets of our affair with El Nino--our wealth of experience in dealing with natural hazards such as severe storms and prolonged droughts--can help us cope with an urgent and controversial environmental problem of our own making--global warming. Intellectually invigorating and a joy to read, Our Affair with El Nino is an important contribution to the debate about the relationship between scientific knowledge and public affairs.
George Philander is Knox Taylor Professor of Geosciences (Meteorology) at Princeton University. He is the author of "Is the Temperature Rising: The Uncertain Science of Global Warming" (Princeton).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix PROLOGUE: Assessing Our Affair as It Approaches a Critical Juncture 1 PART 1: WHO IS EL NINO? 1 A Mercurial Character 11 2 A Fallen Angel? 28 3 A Construct of Ours 34 4 A Matchmaker 40 PART 2: OUR DILEMMA 5 Two Incompatible Cultures 65 6 "Small" Science versus "Big" Science 81 PART 3: COMMON GROUND 7 The Perspective of a Painter 93 8 The Perspective of a Poet 118 9 The Perspective of a Musician 129 10 A Marriage of the "Hard" and "Soft" Sciences 139 11 The Cloud 151 PART 4: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE 12 Predicting the Weather 161 13 Investigating the Atmospheric Circulation 177 14 Exploring the Oceans 189 15 Reconciling Divergent Perspectives on El Nino 213 16 Taking a Long-Term Geological View 227 PART 5: COPING WITH HAZARDS 17 Famines in India 237 18 Fisheries of Peru 240 19 Droughts in Zimbabwe 244 EPILOGUE: Becoming Custodians of Planet Earth 251 NOTES AND REFERENCES 259 INDEX 273
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 7.5.2006 |
|---|---|
| Zusatzinfo | 20 line illus. 1 halftone. 3 tables. |
| Verlagsort | New Jersey |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 235 mm |
| Gewicht | 425 g |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Natur / Technik |
| Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Hydrologie / Ozeanografie | |
| Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Meteorologie / Klimatologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-691-12622-4 / 0691126224 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-691-12622-7 / 9780691126227 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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