Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather (2006) Hardcover Book

Although sometimes enormously destructive, wind is also one of the elements that make life on Earth possible. Without it, the intense solar radiation beating down on the tropics would have no way of escaping. Wind warms the higher latitudes and moderates the equatorial regions, and carries evaporated moisture from oceans to land, where the moisture descends as rain. Wind sculpted the rivers that nurtured the earliest of human civilizations. Even hurricanes are an essential part of the planet's self-regulatory system.