Provides an illustrated tour through the universe's most theatrical and mysterious events, including eclipses, the aurora borealis, rainbows, St. Elmo's fire, dust devils, petrified forests, ball lightning, green flashes, waterspouts, salt lakes and much more. Original.

With a calamitous history of tornadoes, blizzards, and thunderstorms, Minnesotans have a natural interest in weather predictions. From Doppler to dandelions, the WCCO-licensed Mike Lynchs Minnesota WeatherWatch reveals the secrets of weather forecasting in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. A broadcast meteorologist for over 25 years, Mike Lynch infuses the book with his trademark enthusiasm and sense of fun. First he delves into the mechanics of the atmosphere and scientific forecasting methods from the ancient Greeks and Romans to modern Doppler radar and satellite technology. He then turns to good old Mother Nature and shows how, with her guidance--in the form of dandelions and other plants, sky color, stars, critter activity, lakes, and more--we can predict the weather. Rounding out this expert guidance are sidebars on Minnesota weather history and lore, plus a state weather almanac. Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color photographs, this book equips us with the diverse tools needed to forecast the weather in the North Star State.

Explores the beauty of snowflakes, detailing what snowflakes are, how they form, and why each one is unique, and includes a discussion on snow crystals and what type of weather conditions produce snowflakes.

Nadeau (environmental science and public policy, George Mason U.) warns that humanity is currently facing the danger of catastrophic environmental change that threatens our very survival. Moreover, the current institutional regimes of international governance and theoretical tools of environmental economics available to us for addressing this crisis are utterly inadequate to the challenge before us. Fortunately, while human evolutionary history has instilled in us the characteristic that has led to this state of events, it is the very same characteristic which will enable us to solve the problem--the ability to coordinate collective activities in increasingly larger and more complex social systems and to externalize ideas as artifacts. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

A history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next century, and what we can do to prevent a cataclysmic future includes specific suggestions for both lawmakers and individuals, from investing in renewable power sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal energy to steps everyone can take right now to reduce deadly carbon dioxide emissions by seventy percent. 75,000 first printing.

An anecdotal history of snow traces the migrations of prehistoric humans through the multibillion-dollar snowmaking industry of today, sharing compelling facts on such subjects as avalanches, the legend of the yeti and the 1960 winter Olympics. 40,000 first printing.

On the morning of December 26, 2004, on the southern coast of Sri Lanka, Sonali Deraniyagala lost her parents, her husband, and her two young sons in the tsunami she miraculously survived. In this brave and searingly frank memoir, she describes those first horrifying moments and her long journey since. She has written an engrossing, unsentimental, beautifully poised account: as she struggles through the first months following the tragedy, furiously clenched against a reality that she cannot face and cannot deny; and then, over the ensuing years, as she emerges reluctantly, slowly allowing her memory to take her back through the rich and joyous life she’s mourning, from her family’s home in London, to the birth of her children, to the year she met her English husband at Cambridge, to her childhood in Colombo; all the while learning the difficult balance between the almost unbearable reminders of her loss and the need to keep her family, somehow, still alive within her.