A Portrait of the Gulf Stream

As a child in Bréhat, an island off the coast of Brittainy, Érik Orsenna was taught to give thanks for the Gulf Stream, the Atlantic Ocean current that brings warmth to the waters of Europe and gives us our relatively benign climate.

From Cape Hatteras in North Carolina to the legendary Maelström off Norway, Orsenna meets scientists and scholars in an attempt to uncover where this powerful ocean current begins and ends and whether global warming will stop its flow.

Spanning thousands of years of history, Portrait of the Gulf Stream weaves between poetry and science to trace the influence of this current on Europe’s culture and climate.