Synopses & Reviews
Concerned about the possible demise of the Gulf Stream, Érik Orsenna read, investigated, interviewed experts, and traveled from the violent swirls off the coast of Florida to the maelstroms of Norway to better understand this most important of ocean currents. Part homage, part investigation, A Portrait of the Gulf Stream allows readers to join him on a voyage of discovery. From writing about the sea as varied as that of Socrates and Hemingway to scientific theory both ancient and modern, we discover the secrets of this most powerful and mysterious current.Érik Orsenna is a Goncourt Prizewinning novelist and one of the forty "immortals" of the Académie Française, where he holds the seat formerly held by Commander Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
Synopsis
Benjamin Franklin was the first scientist to map the Gulf Stream. Erik Orsenna explains his fascination with the current and more.
Synopsis
The long tern future of the Gulf Stream is now under threat; the Arctic ice is melting and the fear among oceanographers is that the cold water will not sink in the Norwegian Sea, thus switching off this transatlantic heat conveyer. Northern Europe would then freeze, and this apparent paradox - that global warming could bring about a new european ice age - seems to have caught the popular imagination. Orsenna explores the Gulf Stream, its past and its future, both in celebration and in lament of its possible demise.
About the Author
Erik Orsenna is a Goncourt-prize winning novelist, sailor, economist, jurist, presidential adviosr (to Mitterrand), member of the council dEtat (like being a British law lord for governmental matters) and one of the 40 immortals” of the Academie Francaise where he holds the seat formerly held by Commander Jacques-Yves Cousteau.