... eight detailed, immensely readable essays ... dramatic storytelling and also brings out a secondary theme: the tension between objective research and subjective response—the restless curiosity and passionate sense of wonder that so often drives those who study the natural world ... One of the fascinating aspects of Dry’s account is the way that surprise results prompt new questions and new directions ... Dry’s clear scientific explanations are matched by a lyrical evocation of natural phenomena, but although she tells her linked stories with verve and wit, she never falls into the trap of presenting her subjects as lone heroes. Instead she shows how their work was bolstered by that of other researchers, by advances in different fields, by developing technologies, and by funding and institutional support ... Dry is rightly wary of presenting scientific advance as simple progress, a straight line between two points. People belong to their time ... Dry looks beneath her subjects’ masks with sympathy and curiosity. Noting their shared sense of a quest, at once playful and serious
... smart, compelling, and timely ... By focusing on specific scientists, Dry gifts readers with entertaining portraits of some thoroughly interesting if largely unknown individuals ... Driven by determined curiosity, Dry discovers the conventional and the controversial, the dedicated and the somewhat outrageous on her archival hunts. Along the way, she dips into the social and economic consequences of ignoring climate science while also delighting readers with insights into her subjects gained from their diaries, letters, and other sources. Make no mistake, in the midst of discussing Gerould’s navigation of love and science and Charles Piazzi Smyth’s 'almost lunatic attempt to record the face of the skies alone,' Dry shows how an artful blending of the personal and professional can result in unusually affecting scientific profiles. A true success on every literary level.
The author’s lyrical discussion of Charles Piazzi Smyth, one of the first to study clouds deeply, brings in both literary and historical allusions ... Near the end of the book is a fascinating look at meteorologist France Bretherton’s now famous social process diagram of systems underpinning human influence on global climate change ... Characterized by strong storytelling within a scholarly framework, this book will appeal to readers interested in how science is performed and accomplished, and anyone curious about Earth’s changing climate.
... [Dry] is too shrewd to pin her arguments too closely to the current global climate emergency — yet [she] offers compelling evidence for the need to change our approach to the waters that made us ... Dry’s call to use her scientific history of the climate to 'prepare us to see differently, to use the difference of the past to help us conceive of the future with more options in mind' is laudable, but seems unduly optimistic, acknowledging as she does that it remains difficult to see changes in climate and the oceans in the same way we can with the landscape. The water that surrounds us will continue to sustain us: but for how long?
