
The Weather Machine
A Journey Inside the Forecast
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Narrated by:
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Greg Tremblay
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By:
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Andrew Blum
About this listen
From the acclaimed author of Tubes, a lively and surprising tour of the infrastructure behind the weather forecast, the people who built it, and what it reveals about our climate and our planet
The weather is the foundation of our daily lives. It’s a staple of small talk, the app on our smartphones, and often the first thing we check each morning. Yet behind these quotidian interactions is one of the most expansive machines human beings have ever constructed - a triumph of science, technology, and global cooperation. But what is this "weather machine" and who created it?
In The Weather Machine, Andrew Blum takes listeners on a fascinating journey through an everyday miracle. In a quest to understand how the forecast works, he visits old weather stations and watches new satellites blast off. He follows the dogged efforts of scientists to create a supercomputer model of the atmosphere, and traces the surprising history of the algorithms that power their work. He discovers that we have quietly entered a golden age of meteorology - our tools allow us to predict weather more accurately than ever, and yet we haven’t learned to trust them, nor can we guarantee the fragile international alliances that allow our modern weather machine to exist.
Written with the sharp wit and infectious curiosity Andrew Blum is known for, The Weather Machine pulls back the curtain on a universal part of our everyday lives, illuminating our relationships with technology, the planet, and the global community.
©2019 Andrew Blum (P)2019 HarperCollins PublishersPeople who viewed this also viewed...
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The models self-correct and sync with better and better data from more and more elaborate weather stations, they balance local resolution with temporal reach, and we visit with the author a historic weather station, and done in the cafeterias of the modem European Mecca of weather forecasting. Satellites feed these models. Efforts for weather prediction rely on and createsl international cooperation. I thought it was odd not to reflect on what climate change means for weather forecasting, as I've heard It said that "crazy weather is the new norm." But mainly I had expected to learn more about weather itself... that's for the sequel I hope ...
Good, could have been great
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Good view on basic’s
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Good niche subject.
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This is a great book if your interest is specifically in a more in-depth background of weather models, but it’s lacking in anything relating to observational challenges and specific weather events.
Great information on the models, lacking on observational data
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waste of money
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Overall boring
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