Helen Czerski's absorbing Storm in a Teacup stands head and shoulders above other popular science books. Irish TImes Helen Czerski weaves together physics and biology, history and science, in a beautifully poetic way.'

Most importantly, however, Czerski reveals that while the ocean engine has sustained us for thousands of years, today it is faced with urgent threats. By understanding how the ocean works, and its essential role in our global system, we can learn how to protect our blue machine. A fascinating dive into the essential engine that drives our world. Czerski brings the oceans alive with compelling stories that masterfully navigate this most complex system."

Helen Czerski, clearly passionate about it, chooses to present it as an astonishingly elegant and incredibly complex engine of life that powers all the functions of our planet, fueled by the energy of sunlight. For serious sea enthusiasts or budding marine biologists then this book will be the perfect addition to your shelf. For me, it just didn't hit the spot that I was hoping for. The blue of Earth is a gigantic engine, a dynamic liquid power- house that stretches around our planet and is connected to every part of our lives. It has components on every scale, from the mighty Gulf Stream gliding across the Atlantic to the tiny bub- bles bursting at the top of a breaking wave. This is a beautiful, elegant, tightly woven system, full of surprising connections and profound consequences. The complexity can seem over- whelming, but at the largest scale, the logic is straightforward.” While it was all good and entertaining, the author really found her voice in Part Three of the book: The Blue Machine and Us. It was also in this section that I found the real flaws of this book as well. I get that 'the road to disaster is paved with good intentions' and that the ocean is so complex, and there's no way to begin to harness hydropower without having unintended consequences. However, in then in the next line- "one thing we know for sure is that we need to wean ourselves off greenhouse gasses." The author making the point that we need to learn how to live with the ocean, but doesn't want that to have unintended consequences, but also recognizes the need for somewhat drastic change because humanities current course of action is having disastrous effects on our environment, but doesn't want to propose any recommendations.

Machine: an apparatus using or applying mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task. Or an efficient and well-organized group of powerful people. Engine: a machine with moving parts that converts power into motion. All of the Earth's ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a single-engine powered by sunlight – a blue machine. I absolutely concede there are scientific processes and chemical composition and reactions in the ocean that are reliable, verifiable and replicable. That doesn’t make it a machine. Maybe what she meant was power or energy. If each wave was a machine, or a heart was a machine, or a brain was a machine, then we could replicate them and there would be exact copies we could master and control and evolution shows us time and time again that is a delusion.

Beyond the Book

A scientist’s exploration of the “ocean engine”—the physics behind the ocean’s systems—and why it matters.

Although physics is her touchstone, Czerski weaves in plenty of marine biology, along with personal encounters with the ocean as a diver, rower, or scientist on a research ship navigating between ice floes, and encounters with other intrepid researchers working on the surface or down in the depths. Her intense involvement with Hawaiian canoeists, tapping the energy of the ocean waves to move faster than seems possible, allows her to wax lyrical about the lessons of teamwork. And it underscores her message that a removed scientific understanding of the ocean is a poor thing without engaging with it more directly, physically and culturally. All of Earth's ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a single engine powered by sunlight - a blue machine. Czerski aims to greatly expand and even revolutionise the reader's understanding of what is going on in seven tenths of the planet that is not covered in land Financial TimesBut when explaining the physics of light, waves, bubbles, salinity, water density, temperature, the tiniest molecule and the broadest ocean, Czerski may well be peerless. In the scientific sections, Blue Machine is a dazzle of stories beautifully told. Take this description of sunlight transformed by Earth: Most of the non-fiction I read is history but I do like to make an occasional foray into science. I’ve come across Helen Czerski as a broadcaster but not as a writer. My mistake – her writing is immediately engaging and good enough that Blue Machine would be an interesting read if it were only, as she puts it, ‘a voyage through the global ocean’. What lifts it further is the depth (sorry) achieved by mixing her own experiences into the narrative, from Arctic research trips to canoeing in the Pacific. Placing her live science research alongside a very wide-ranging portrait of the oceans makes for a great read. This isn’t a book dumbed down for the general reader: Czerski doesn’t avoid complicated concepts but conveys them using straightforward language; we all need a science teacher like Helen. That still accounts for just a small fraction of the ocean, an interconnected mass of salt water thousands of miles in extent. As anyone who has looked properly at a globe, or studied the pictures of our planet from space, knows, water covers almost three-quarters of the Earth’s surface. And although on a planetary scale it is just a smear of moisture, it is still deep beyond human ken – the average depth of the whole lot is 3.68 kilometres. Down there, there are water movements vaster than empires and more slow, currents of matter and energy with a global reach.

Awash with fascinating facts. Helen Czerski writes with authority, passion, and an easy conversational style. You will want to be out there on the ice and ocean with her. I loved it." - Hugh Aldersey-Williams, author of The Tide: The Science and Stories Behind the Greatest Force on Earth Czerski is a wonderful writer. Most scientists could give you a handful of fascinating facts about their subject, no doubt, but few can string them together into such a compelling and elegantly written story, or convey complex ideas and novel perspectives with a few vivid phrases. Blue Machine really does change the way you see the world.' Christopher Hart, Daily Mail Earth is home to a huge story that is rarely told - that of our ocean. Not the fish or the dolphins, but the massive ocean engine itself: what it does, why it works, and the many ways it has influenced animals, weather and human history & culture. Through stories of history, culture, and animals, she explains how water temperature, salinity, gravity, and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates all interact in a complex dance, supporting life at the smallest scale—plankton—and the largest—giant sea turtles, whales, humankind. From the ancient Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves, to permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that can live for hundreds of years, she introduces the messengers, passengers, and voyagers that rely on interlinked systems of vast currents, invisible ocean walls, and underwater waterfalls.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.' A beautifully written guide to the seas reveals the hidden complexity of their role in moving energy around the Earth.... A brisk tour of the oceans, like a sleek catamaran skipping over the waves. Deftly harnessing the trade winds of history and geography, guiding us through eddies and currents of anecdote, [Czerski] leaves us with an understanding of the complexity of the oceans. A scientist’s exploration of the "ocean engine"—the physics behind the ocean’s systems—and why it matters. Czerski is a wonderful writer ... Blue Machine really does change the way you see the world.' Daily Mail