El Niño Unlocking the Secrets of the Master Weather-Maker

by Nash, J. Madeleine

• ISBN13: 9780446679923
• ISBN10: 0446679925
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-03-01
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Summary

El Ni+¦o, the Pacific Ocean-born weather system that has been much in the news over the last decade, "turns dry places wet, wet places dry, cold places warm, and warm places cold." Scientists have only begun to puzzle out its mysterious and erratic workings, a quest that Time magazine science correspondent Madeleine Nash chronicles in this engaging book.What those scientists have learned, Nash tells us, underscores the interconnectedness--and, in her words, the "teleconnectiveness"--of the world's ecological systems. El Ni+¦o may be born in the subtropical waters of the western Pacific (where, among other things, it has helped spark great firestorms in Australia and drought in Indonesia), but its influence extends around the globe. Moreover, Nash writes, El Ni+¦o touches billions of human lives, taking a role in the spread of diseases such as hantavirus and threatening food and water supplies. With the ever-growing human population and the enduring presence of the weather system and its cyclical counterpart, things are only likely to get worse, she tells us: "the torrential rains and searing droughts connected with future El Ni+¦os and La Ni+¦as will mean still more loss of lives and property."Nash's inquiry into world weather and the science surrounding it makes for lively, and sometimes unsettling, reading. --Gregory McNamee

Author Biography

J. Madeleine Nash is the former senior science correspondent for TIME magazine and a three-time winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science magazine writing award.

Table of Contents

Chapter One	1	(26)
Rio Nido
Imprint of a Mighty Fin
A Common Thread
Chapter Two	27	(28)
The Christmas Current
The Southern Oscillation
The Spur to Synthesis
Chapter Three	55	(30)
Quelccaya
Enter El Nino
From the Jaws of Defeat
Chapter Four	85	(27)
Surprise
Wyrtki's Waves
Foreshadowings
Chapter Five	112	(27)
The Onset
Teleconnections
The Warning
Chapter Six	139	(29)
Stormy Weather
Of Houses Swallowed by Mud
Anatomy of a Slide
Chapter Seven	168	(31)
Out of Africa
Of Mice and Men
Deja Vu?
Chapter Eight	199	(27)
Wanariset Samboja
A Tragedy Foretold
The Carbon Connection
Chapter Nine	226	(30)
The Faraway Island
Cycles Within Cycles
Back to the Future
Chapter Ten	256	(30)
The Hot Zone
A Special Time
The Scrolls
Chapter Eleven	286	(24)
Back to Quelccaya
Rise and Fall
The Other Leviathan
Acknowledgments	310	(4)
Selected Bibliography	314	(11)
Copyright Acknowledgments	325	(4)
Index	329