Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster

Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster by Jacob Soboroff

A reporter found himself in LA reporting on his hometown of Pacific Palisades burning down. The book tries to straddle the line between detachment and heavy involvement. There are reminiscences of the past in the area as well as jabs at Trump. The fires came right around the transition from Biden to Trump so there is ample time to poke fun of Trump's obsessions. (Many seemed to start off with a rational point and then go off the rails with hairbrained solutions.) The fires come across as surprisingly non-dramatic in the book. There was a lot of hard work and creeping into deserted areas, but not much of the expected personal drama. Maybe we have just become too spoiled with the disaster genres.

The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind

The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind by Simon Winchester

Simon Winchester does a great job of tying personal experiences into a narrative history. In this book, he attempted to document the wind. This is perhaps a little too broad. The story seemed to jump around various areas impacted by the wind. From sailing to dust storms, the wind has played a role in history. The many bits are interesting, but do not form a coherent whole.

Floods (A True Book: Earth Science)

Floods (A True Book: Earth Science)

The book on floods starts with examples of floods in the midwest. It then goes to explain the cause of floods and follows up with other examples, such as Katrina in New Orleans. It felt detailed without being too long.

Snowstorms (Wild Weather)

Snowstorms (Wild Weather) by Jim Mezzanotte (Author), Debra Voege (Contributor)

There are a few chapters in this short, easy to read book. It covers details on snow. It seems well written, but the kids were not interested.

Tornadoes

Tornadoes by Brian Cassie

Tornados are rare but violent. This book provides a simple introduction to tornados. It includes the details that the kids were asking - often in the next page after they asked them.

The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History

Mount Tambora erupted in 1816, spreading large amounts of ash into the atmosphere. This had impacts on the weather throughout the world. The Year Without Summer brings that all into context. Rather than just focus on the direct weather impacts, it brings in the entire historical context. Both Napoleon and Frankenstein make appearances. Sunspots are often postulated as a theory for the strange weather. Others proclaim it is a sign of the end of the world. There are summer snows and massive crop failures.

Ireland suffered from crop failures due to heavy rains. New England and Canada suffered due to cold weather. There was some hope of a late growing season that was quickly dashed by a frost. Countries that did have sufficient food stores started to clamp down on exports to help preserve for themselves.

There were difficulties, but the world did continue to function. Jane Austen wrote her final book before passing away in 1817. Joseph Smith Senior's family moved around in a struggle to farm in New England. His son would go on to found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other government and literary figures continued to go about their lives. It is interesting to see how this weather event did trigger changes in the course of history. 

When the Sky Breaks: Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and the Worst Weather in the World (Smithsonian)

Hurricanes can bring large scale devastation. The Pacific ones tend to be worse than the Atlantic ones. However, the biggest press coverage occurs when one hits a major city (such as New York City.) Tornadoes can also be very devastating. This book has a quick analysis of the powerful storms.

The Weather of the Pacific Northwest

The Weather of the Pacific Northwest is a definitive introduction to all things related to regional weather of this part of the United States. Weather prediction on the west coast of the United States can be challenging. Weather systems typically come from the west. There is a large Pacific Ocean to the west, and limited visibility in to the details of the weather. There are also huge shifts in terrain over short distances. The multiple mountain ranges suck a great deal of precipitation from the sky, leaving the west sides exceptionally wet, while the east sides are dry. The ranges also help block air from the interior, leading to a rather temperate climate. Alas, there are gaps in the mountain ranges. This allows interior air systems to come through, bringing their more extreme conditions and high wind.

The book is beautifully illustrated and filled with pictures and graphs illustrating the topics discussed. I was somewhat disappointed by some of the graphs. While they are fairly typical for weather graphs, I do wish they could have improved them to better illustrate the topic of discussion. (For instance, there were a couple illustrations comparing different situations that had different scales.)

The book has extensive coverage of the detailed weather systems of different parts of the Northwest. Enumclaw is very prone to high winds, even when things are calm a short distance away. (It  Sequim is dry and sunny, while less than 75 miles away, Forks measures their rainfall in feet. Even the city of Seattle can have different weather within the city. Puget sound is a moderating influence, while hills can change the weather. A convergence zone tends to set over the city, leading to more overcast systems. Portland can often be colder in the winder as systems move through the Columbia River gap. Eastern Washington and Oregon are much colder in the winter and hotter in the summer - and get a lot less rain.

The book also covers some of the extreme weather events and attempts to provide explanation of how they occurred. (It is much easier for the newer ones.) The impacts of climate change are discussed, both in the context of human caused global warming as well as natural changes (such as the ending of the little ice age.)

The book is generally well written. However, parts do get a little repetitive. (I do get the point that a bicycle pump trends to warm air!) The update page for the book currently does not have any content. Maybe there will be corrections in the future?

The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast

The weather is both local and global. Each location has different weather. However, the global forces impact everyone. The "skill" in a weather forecast is a measure of how well the forecast is better than guessing from climatological norms. This skill has been gradually increasing over time, with more skillful forecasts being made up to around a week in advance. Making these forecasts requires enormous amounts of data and computational power. In the early days, weather forecasting was done by looking at the current conditions and assuming future weather would be similar to how it was after similar conditions. Alas, there are so many variables in place that it can be difficult to have such a library. Eventually the scientists looked at the physics of the situation and gradually developed the discipline of meteorology. 

The advances in technology came along with the evolution of weather prediction. The telegraph enabled knowledge to outpace weather systems. With most systems moving west to east, telegraph communications could provide advance notice of upcoming storms. Weather stations helped provide many different data points. Supercomputers have the power to crunch the data. Satellites provided even more observations on a global basis.  The weather does not know geographical boundaries. However, many of the tools used for weather prediction are also useful for national security. This creates interesting conflicts in governments. However, weather continues to be one area of international cooperation. With widespread data availability it may become nearly impossible to manipulate weather information for an individual country's gain. There are now many personal weather stations as well as cell phones that can record weather data. These mobile devices also demand up to the minute weather information. Gone are the days when a single weather forecast can be made. Now the weather simulations most be constantly rerun to get the most up to date forecast. We have come a long way in the field of weather prediction, yet forecasts are still far from perfect.

Weather Makers

Weather Makers is such an over the top climate change book that it could turn even a true believer into a skeptic. This is in spite of its effort to present the science to help convert us to the urgency of doing something about climate change. The book presents many examples of species and land areas that are suffering due to the change in climate. It contains research on climate and the models and tools that have been used to identify the warming. However, it also presents the many feedback cycles and contravalent factors. Should we just encourage more airplane contrails to reduce the impact? Do hybrid cars really help - or is it the roads that are problems. We have been doing climate science for a half century now. How accurate were are predictions for today based on past assumptions? What assumptions have changed?
I also wonder what our society will look like 10,000 years from now. Could a society with our technology have existed 10,000 years ago, and we just don't see any record of it? Did other societies trigger climatic change like we have? I also wonder what is important and what is not. Are we already on an irreparable path towards turning earth into a sauna? Or are we just experiencing random blips. How much of the change we see are just random variations? It is a difficult question to answer. We only have detailed records for the past century, which happens to correspond to times of heavy increased CO2. We have tried to use ice cores, trees, and various other means to extrapolate past conditions. But, how accurate are those? Do we have other factors like airplane contrails and particulate matter that conteract CO2 in the air? There are so many different questions that could leave us in a state of paralysis.
The book also seemed to focus on "burning" to produce CO2. It even posited that if everybody switched from a hummer to a Prius, we would be on track. This is the type of thinking that could get us in real trouble. What about the "urban heat island"? What about our land use devoted to cars. We are trying to solve a global problem caused by our current societal choices. A simple surface change will not fix it. We need to make the appropriate sacrifices to be better stewards of the earth.