Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science - Rilegato

Ebbesmeyer, Curtis; Scigliano, Eric

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0061558419 ISBN 13: 9780061558412

Casa editrice: Smithsonian Books, 2009

Riassunto

A pioneering oceanographer's assessment of the role of flotsam on world history describes how his volunteer team's efforts to track the ocean's currents revealed surprising discoveries about such subjects as the discovery of America, Japanese trade, and the origins of life; in an account that also makes observations about current environmental threats.

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Informazioni sugli autori

Curtis Ebbesmeyer holds a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Washington. Media worldwide have turned to his expertise on ocean currents and floating objects. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Eric Scigliano, winner of Livingston and AAAS prizes for reporting, has written for Harper's, New Scientist, the New York Times, and many other publications. His books include Puget Sound, Michelangelo's Mountain, and Love, War, and Circuses.

Dalla quarta di copertina

Pioneering oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer unravels the mystery of marine currents, uncovers the astonishing story of flotsam, and changes the world's view of trash, the ocean, and our global environment.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer is no ordinary scientist. He's been a consulting oceanographer for multinational firms and a lead scientist on international research expeditions, but he's never held a conventional academic appointment. He seized the world's imagination as no other scientist could when he and his worldwide network of beachcomber volunteers traced the ocean's currents using thousands of sneakers and plastic bath toys spilled from storm-tossed freighters.

Now, for the first time, Ebbesmeyer tells the story of his lifelong struggle to solve the sea's mysteries while sharing his most surprising discoveries. He recounts how flotsam has changed the course of history—leading Viking mariners to safe harbors, Columbus to the New World, and Japan to open up to the West—and how it may even have made the origin of life possible. He chases icebergs and floating islands; investigates ocean mysteries from ghost ships to a spate of washed-up severed feet on Canadian beaches; and explores the enormous floating "garbage patches" and waste-heaped "junk beaches" that collect the flotsam and jetsam of industrial society. Finally, Ebbesmeyer reveals the rhythmic and harmonic order in the vast oceanic currents called gyres—"the heartbeat of the world "—and the threats that global warming and disintegrating plastic waste pose to the seas . . . and to us.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Smithsonian Books
• Data di pubblicazione: 2009
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0061558419
• ISBN 13: 9780061558412
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 286
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile