12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Charming, but also infuriating, September 14, 2009
This review is from: Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science (Hardcover)
This book contains many charming anecdotes about how floating objects,
from garbage to sneakers to dead bodies, are carried around by the
surface currents of the ocean. I particularly liked the extended
discussion of how careful observation of flotsam may have persuaded
Columbus that the ocean wasn't too wide to cross to India. The book
also gives some nice descriptions of what its like to conduct science
at sea.
However, as a physical oceanographer, I was disappointed and finally
infuriated by the book's neglect of the discoveries of literally
hundreds of scientists who have studied ocean circulation in the last
century. The book argues for new names of the major ocean gyres but
says little about how the gyres work. Other fascinating topics in
physical oceanography poorly explained by the book are the
relationship between the wind and ocean currents, the existence and
cause of strong currents on the western side of gyres, and the way the
Earth's rotation creates a simple relation between water velocity and
pressure. An intrinsic feature of ocean dynamics is that surface
water tends to converge (draw together in the center) in the
subtropical gyres and diverge (float apart) in the subpolar gyres.
This is very important for understanding why garbage patchs would
accumulate in the subtropical gyres and make landfall adjacent to the
subpolar gyres. Based on the book's discussions of physical
oceanography, I suspect the book could have said more about garbage
and other flotsam as well.
The large gaps in explanation would be less irritating if the book
didn't sometimes give the impression that Dr. Ebbesmeyer was
practically the only person studying ocean circulation. Readers of
the book will learn about the bottles thrown into the ocean by
preachers to evangelize strangers, but not about the thousands of
remotely-tracked drifters placed in the ocean by scientists to trace
the currents. Much of the book gives biographical information which
is sometimes interesting and relevant but sometimes drifts into
unconnected personal reminiscence. The book would have been much
better if some of the biographical parts were replaced by better
descriptions of the scientific context of Dr. Ebbesmeyer's quest for
the rubber ducky.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
This book would have been better if my grandfather didn't write it, July 23, 2009
Ebbesmeyer is obviously a scientist, and obviously a good one. You catch glimpses of this throughout the book. His studies of ocean currents are obviously well-worked and well-researched, and his publication history is solid. In the Appendices you see data and it's obvious that he knows how to interpret and work with it.
Too bad the book reads like it was written by my grandfather. This is probably Scigliano's fault, as he's the non-scientist, writer here. But someone should have explained to them both that there are two types of audience: one that would read a book like this to hear about people who live on the beach and would be interested in stories about scattering Ebbesmeyer's friends' ashes at sea, and others who would read the book to obtain information that will help them learn more about something they think is an important scientific phenomenon. By including too much of the former, the authors have squandered the chance to provide the latter.
I expected science. I got folksy wisdom. Not the same thing.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tracing the Stuff that Floats on the Ocean, July 15, 2009
This review is from: Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science (Hardcover)
For some reason, people tend to flock to the water. Especially when vacation calls. There is something magical about sitting on a beach, watching the waves. Or in having a cold beverage while gazing at the vastness of the ocean. This migration to the water seems to be part of human nature - a throw back to some ancient time. As we are in the midst of summer, a book concerning the oceans, and things that float on it, seems like a great idea. Part science, part autobiography, part cautionary tale, Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science, by Curt Ebbesmeyer and Eric Scigliano, makes for the perfectly literal beach book.
Contents: Preface: A New World, Chasing Water; Oil and Icebergs; Messages in Bottles; Eureka, a Sneaker!; Coffins, Castaways, and Cadavers; The Admiral of the Floating World; Borne on a Black Current; The Great Conveyor; Ashes to Ashes, Life from the Sea; Junk Beach and Garbage Patch; The Synthetic Sea; The Music of the Gyres; Appendix A: Urban Legends of the Sea; Appendix B: A Million Drifting Messages; Appendix C: The Oceanic Gyres; Appendix D: Ocean Memory; Appendix E: Harmonics of the Gyres; Acknowledgements; Illustration Credits; Glossary; Further Reading; Index
Dr. Curt Ebbesmeyer wasn't always an oceanographer; his undergraduate degree is in Mechanical Engineering and after college, he landed a job with Mobil Oil. Soon, he decided he wanted a graduate degree and gravitated toward two possibilities; nuclear engineering and oceanography. His wife was interested in library sciences. Deciding on a college that was strong in all three took him to the University of Washington. It was there that Dr. Ebbesmeyer decided on oceanography. Flotsametrics is the story of Ebbesmeyer's rise to the top of oceanography by, of all things, studying and reporting on the flotsam and jetsam in the ocean. While he made a name for himself studying Puget Sound and the effects of wastewater discharged in it, he rose to prominence by researching and reporting on the beaching of thousands of toy ducks on the western coast of North America. Using a software program, OSCURS, developed by a friend, he was able to accurately predict where and when flotsam would wash up on the shore. With this knowledge, he was able to better study the gyres, continental-scale closed loops of water around which flotsam drifts, in the oceans of the world. He also coined the term "garbage patch," which are areas within a gyre where drifting objects collect. These areas create giant garbage dumps. one of which is called Junk Beach and is located on Hawaii's Big Island. Interestingly, Ebbesmeyer reveals the rhythmic nature of the world's oceans, adding an underlying beauty to the water. Finally, he weighs in with his thoughts on global warming and effect that it will have on the gyres as well as the pervasiveness of plastics in the oceans.
Like the tides, this book rises and falls. The science of the gyres, flotsam, garbage patches, and the cautionary words allow this book to sail. When Ebbesmeyer recounts his life, it has a dragging effect on the reader. I am sure that he has a wealth of interesting and lively anecdotes, however the ones that he chose for this book are overshadowed by the flotsam. While it makes for a few uninteresting pages, when he returns the seas, the pace really picks up. We are treated to maps, diagrams, and family pictures that add to the stories that he relates. Written in a manner that is accessible to everyone, his passion for the oceans is shared with the reader, who cannot close the book without having a better understanding of them. He is not heavy handed with global warming, but rather brings a different perspective; the plastics that pollute our oceans may be affecting the weather, and, without a doubt, the creatures that inhabit it and fly over it. While the chapter on the garbage patch was unnerving, he shows how these gathering places showed early voyagers where to make camp, provided Christopher Columbus with the knowledge that there is something out there, over the horizon, and brought iron and wood to remote areas of the world. If you live in Washington state or on or near an ocean, this is a very worthwhile book. For the rest of us, it no less interesting, as the oceans affect all of us. And if you have ever thrown a message in a bottle into the water, Ebbesmeyer will show you where it may have made landfall.
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