The author of The Blue Machine and Storm in a Teacup, she is a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, writing regularly about the physics of everyday life. Czerski’s fascinating new book casts the ocean as an extraordinary giant engine, and helps us grasp its complex physics and its key role in climate change. Far from being homogenous, the water in our oceans varies in temperature, salinity and depth, among other things. All of Earth’s oceans, from the equator to the poles, are a single engine powered by sunlight, driving huge flows of energy, water, life, and raw materials. THE TIMES BOOK OF THE WEEK: 'This beautifully written, sweeping guide shows how the deep movement of the seas have ruled our lives in unexpected ways over millennia.

Interestingly, satellite imagery has shown a significant increase in green growth in the oceans recently. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. All of the Earth's ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a single engine powered by sunlight - a blue machine. The author includes huge amounts of information from the way the ocean moves, to the different depths and strata, she mentions how people have learnt to navigate and how humans have impacted it.This book reminds us that we are the crew (not passengers) of a blue planet and explains in such beautiful detail how the functioning of those oceans (the blue machine in Helen’s words) is absolutely crucial to the continued health of every life form on the planet. Our weather is, in part, affected by what happens out at sea and we do experience seasonal high tides, and weather coming in of the sea and we do benefit from the Gulf Stream. I don’t remember when I have read a book that has been such a delight to read from start to finish, but that also, when I have come to the end, had totally altered my appreciation of the workings of our whole planet.

Traditional Chinese and Japanese poetry and art depict the above-horizon, superior mirage, or fata morgana, as exhalations of clam-monsters.

The book as a whole is a carefully structured treatise on the big topics needed to appreciate what the blue machine does for the planet, delves into the finer points to provide just the right amount of detail to explain everything, and then lovingly intersperses all of that with storytelling that provides context and deeper understanding to the facts. The author does include science in this book, but it is explained in a way that is completely understandable to a non-science-brained person. I haven't actually finished reading this book yet but I am so loving it that I can't hold back from telling everyone! All of the Earth’s ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a single engine powered by sunlight – a blue machine. Most important, however, Czerski reveals that while the ocean engine has sustained us for thousands of years, today it is faced with urgent threats.