THE OCEAN OF AIR

( … ) Twelve years in the writing, The Ocean of Air illuminates that immense portion of the environment known as atmosphere. The author explores and describes the air from its most tenuous reaches - fringing on outer space - to the inmost few inches in which earth's microclimate governs the germination of seeds, the cycles of most life forms, and the entire balance of terrestrial nature. Winds, heat and cold, water, storms, the shaping of lands by the forces of climate and weather, all are brilliantly described.

Scientifically accurate, this book also tells the human story of man's attempts to describe, understand, and predict the weather, his few and essentially unsuccessful efforts to control it. Here, too, is a survey of how the ocean of air affects man's pursuits, his commerce, his wars, his weapons, and the whole scope and sweep of his history. ( ... )