Category Five

June 15, 2024
An examination of the causes of the ever growing number of savage storms. Fox, author of Northland and The Last Winter, purports to investigate how the proliferation of increasingly dangerous, unpredictable storms is driven by changes in ocean temperatures due to climate change. In particular, there has been a marked increase in Category 5 storms, those with winds of at least 190 miles per hour. Porter is a seasoned writer, and this is an intrinsically important issue, so it's unfortunate that the narrative continually veers off course. Fox, who has written extensively about wilderness excursions, is an experienced sailor, and much of the text involves his adventures. He devotes considerable time to the mechanics of sailing and the various characters he has met along the way. Some of this material is interesting, especially for fellow sailors, but these discussions are tangential to the theme of ocean temperatures and climate change. A few of Fox's detours are even more unrelated, such as the chapter about the role a typhoon played in a World War II naval battle. When the author sticks to the topic of climate change, he delivers a variety of useful information, but his tone is often overly alarmist. Fox does provide some interesting nuggets, including the chronic shortfall of funding for ocean research, the innovative use of drones to study storms, and the possible need for a Category 6 designation. By 2030, he writes, "Category 6 typhoons will have devastated a third of Japan, the Philippines, eastern China, Vietnam, South Korea, and Taiwan." However, many readers may grow weary of digging out the relevant bits. If only the author brought the same level of focus to this book that he did to The Last Winter. Porter offers intermittent illumination, but a lack of focus leads to a middling book about a crucial subject.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 8, 2024
By combining gripping accounts of sailing voyages through raging storms with fascinating background on how climate scientists are studying extreme weather, Fox (The Last Winter) delivers a report that’s as entertaining as it is informative. He notes that for decades, sailors have been raising the alarm that centuries-old rules of thumb for navigating the sea are losing their predictive value as climate change transforms the ocean. This can lead to dangerous consequences, Fox contends, providing a harrowing description of how in 1991, sailor John Kretschmer endured 80 mile-per-hour winds and torrential rain after getting caught in a category three hurricane despite sailing outside “typical hurricane generation zones” near Bermuda. Fox explains that as CO2 warms the atmosphere, the heat intensifies the process by which energy is transferred from the ocean to the air, which in turn exacerbates the differences in air pressure that generate wind and make severe storms more common. Exploring scientific efforts to better understand how global warming is changing the ocean, Fox details oceanographer Adrienne Sutton’s work with Richard Jenkins’s Saildrone company to develop unmanned vessels capable of taking CO2 and temperature measurements even in the middle of a hurricane. Filled with enlightening climate science and exciting adventure writing, this thrills. Agent: Duvall Osteen, UTA.

September 1, 2024
In this captivating and lively text, Fox, a travel writer, explains how little is known about the ocean, how it contributes to climate change, and how its power might be utilized to help solve the climate crisis. With clear and vivid writing and an urgent tone, the author conveys the history of the ocean's impact on civilization and the critical role that oceans play in creating weather and distributing heat, precipitation, and carbon. He interviews a fascinating cast of characters, including sailors and researchers from around the world, sometimes joining them while they explore, and other times traveling to interviews in a boat built by his father, deftly interweaving his own personal sailing stories. The text switches seamlessly back and forth in time, describing events such as a storm that devastated fleets in the U.S. Navy during WWII, to a contemporary conversation with the head of Saildrone, a company that builds pilotless oceangoing vehicles that can sail into hurricanes and collect data. Suitable for the general reader or the environmentalist, Category Five is essential reading for anyone concerned about extreme weather and its impacts.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.