Wind: Discovering Air in Motion is a beautiful book to explore the role of one of our favourite weather talking points. Wind carries pollen, shapes sand dunes and pushes ships across the ocean..
If your hair has ever blown back on a breezy day, you’ve noticed the wind at work. But what causes the wind? Are there different types? And how do we measure and name them? How does wind shape our ecosystems, planets and animals. And up beyond the clouds, does the wind affect other planets too?
Considering people in England are always talking about the weather, it’s surprising how little is known about it by the average person. This book explains it all, a wonderful read for children and adults alike. Created with help from a meteorologist, this beautiful book of history and earth science features playful prose and colourful illustrations about this powerful (but sometimes overlooked) natural element.
Wind is basically moving air. Although we can’t see it, we can feel and hear it, and see it when it blows leaves off the ground in the forest. It’s a good source of green energy, but great care must be taken. The wrong types of turbines can kill birds and bats (disturbing echo-location) and big wind farms often result in carving up natural land, and require lorries thundering through to maintain them. It’s far better to simply use less energy when you can, live simply and support small-scale community solar panels etc, which can power whole towns and villages.
Wind is caused simply by the difference in atmospheric pressure (the rising and sinking of air). So high pressure wind is caused by air is sinking, and vice versa. Nearly all the windiest parts of the UK are in Scotland, with England’s windiest places being in on the Isle of Wight and the southwest. Dartmoor in Devon has high land above sea level, and that’s why it’s calmer in valleys elsewhere, which don’t have as much wind.
Scotland’s Orkney Isles are renowned for being super-windy, with an almost permanent breeze. It’s so windy that some food is affected, as it is blown with salt from the sea. The windiest place on earth is the Bay of Antarctica.
