Books in brief

摘要

Arnold H. Taylor Oxford University Press 288 pp. £16.99(2011) Recurring weather patterns such as El Nino and the North Atlantic Oscillation underlie many changes in biological systems. Marine scientist Arnold Taylor explains how great global circulations come about through ties between air and sea, and how they impinge on life. He describes how they were discovered, through tracking drifting wrecks, plastic toys and other flotsam. And he cautions that, despite the cycles' regularity, their complex and nonlinear origins make predictions of their future behaviour difficult.