Communities are seeing their coastlines erode and are increasingly exposed to lashing storms without the protective barrier of sea ice.
So, for instance, Rees adds ballast to the colonial part of the book by telling us about the experiences of real historical adventurers, including the Jesuit priest Andrew White who made a white-knuckle crossing to Maryland in 1634 complete with lashing storms and the threat of pirates.
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of an even more dire future, with sea level rise imperiling coastal communities, more frequent, intense typhoons and hurricanes lashing storm-prone regions, and persistent drought disrupting agricultural production and framing-based livelihoods.
The new priority search area is around 2,000 km west of Perth, a stretch of isolated ocean frequently lashed by storm force winds and massive swells.
In "Sorcerer" four criminal outcasts (led by a steely-nerved Roy Scheider) pilot trucks of nitroglycerin through the jungle, lashed by storms and the doom-laden fugues and blasts of Tangerine Dream.
Speaking from Panama City, itself lashed by storms that killed nine children, UNICEF Deputy Regional Director Alfredo Missair said that widespread poverty and weak social services in the region mean that those most affected by the hurricanes are also those least well equipped to cope.
Three people have been found dead as a severe storm lashing southeast Australia has caused flash floods, destroyed homes and stranded dozens of people, officials have said.
South Australia has copped another belting with a destructive storm lashing the state just 24 hours after super cell thunderstorms knocked out the state's entire power network.
And in many communities along the Atlantic seaboard, residents and business owners began boarding up their windows and shuttering their homes as they anticipated the brutal lashing from the storm, which could taunt the coastal United States into Saturday.
