From an award–winning journalist, a “beautifully illustrated” book describing “the most pivotal moments . . . in the climate’s rich . . . 4.5 billion-year history.” (The Washington Post)
Colorful and captivating, Weather: An Illustrated History hopscotches through 100 meteorological milestones and insights, from prehistory to today’s headlines and tomorrow’s forecasts. Bite-sized narratives, accompanied by exciting illustrations, touch on such varied topics as Earth’s first atmosphere, the physics of rainbows, the deadliest hailstorm, Groundhog Day, the invention of air conditioning, London’s Great Smog, the Year Without Summer, our increasingly strong hurricanes, and the Paris Agreement on climate change. A groundbreaking work by prominent environmental journalist and author Andrew Revkin, Weather: An Illustrated History presents an intriguing history of humanity’s evolving relationship with Earth’s dynamic climate system and the wondrous weather it generates.
“FINALLY, someone has done something about the weather. Andrew Revkin and Lisa Mechaley have given us a startlingly fascinating book about how weather got the way it is, and how we’ve reacted to it, used it, and even helped shape it. There are a hundred captivating stories in this book that are as enlightening as they are fun. Reading them is like seeing the clouds part and the sun come out.” —Alan Alda, longtime host of Scientific American Frontiers and a founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University
”Informative, addictively readable . . . Highly recommended.” —Nathaniel Philbrick, National Book Award winner for In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
”A gift of a book—at once fascinating, informative, and surprising.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sixth Extinction
Andrew Revkin is one of America’s most honored and experienced journalists focused on environmental and human sustainability. In the spring of 2018, he joined the staff of the National Geographic Society as strategic adviser for environmental and science journalism. Formerly the senior reporter for climate issues at the Pulitzer Prize-winning ProPublica and the Pace University Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding, he has reported on science and the environment for more than three decades, mainly for The New York Times. He has written on global warming science and solutions and energy issues since the 1980s, from the North Pole to the White House, and is among those credited with first proposing that we have entered a “geological age of our own making,” known increasingly as the Anthropocene. He has won top awards in science journalism multiple times, along with a Guggenheim Fellowship. Revkin has written acclaimed books on global warming, the changing Arctic, and the violent assault on the Amazon rain forest, as well as three book chapters on science communication. Drawing on his experience with his Times blog, Dot Earth, which Time Magazine named one of the top 25 blogs in 2013, Revkin has spoken to audiences around the world, including at the United Nations and Vatican, about paths to progress on a turbulent planet. In spare moments, he is a performing songwriter and was a frequent accompanist for Pete Seeger. He lives in Cold Spring, NY, with his wife and coauthor, Lisa Mechaley, who is an educator at the Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation.