Portrait of the Gulf Stream: In Praise of Currents (Armchair Traveller)

'It so happens that ever since childhood I have been in love with ocean currents, in love with those rivers hidden in the water.' As a child in Brehat, an island off the coast of Brittany, Érik Orsenna was told to give thanks for the Gulf Stream, the Atlantic ocean current that brings warmth to the waters of Europe and gives us our relatively benign climate. It is his passion and concern for the Gulf Stream that is the motivation behind this book, in which he asks 'What is the Gulf Stream?', 'Where does it begin and end?', 'Will global warming stop its flow?'. In search of answers to these questions, Orsenna travels from Cape Hatteras to the legendary Maelström off Norway, to meet the scholars and scientists who hold the key to the mysteries of this powerful ocean current. Spanning thousands of years of history, this fascinating book weaves between poetry and science to trace the influence of ocean currents on European climate and culture, from ancient Phoenician seafarers to the captains of 21st-century ballistic missile submarines, from Scottish rhododendron growers to Breton fishermen, and gives new insight into the potential for catastrophic climate change.