A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic

A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic

Peter Wadhams has been studying ice first-hand since 1970, completing 50 trips to the world's poles and observing for himself the changes over the course of nearly five decades. His conclusions are stark: the ice caps are melting. Following the hottest summer on record, sea ice in September 2016 was the thinnest in recorded history. There is now the probability that within a few years, the North Pole will be ice-free for the first time in 10,000 years, entering what some call the "Arctic death spiral." As sea ice, as well as land ice on Greenland and Antarctica, continues to melt, the rise in sea levels will devastate coastal communities across the world. The collapse of summer ice in the Arctic will release large amounts of methane currently trapped by offshore permafrost. Methane has twenty-three times greater greenhouse warming effect per molecule than CO2; an ice-free arctic summer will therefore have an albedo effect nearly equivalent to that of the last thirty years.

A sobering but urgent and engaging book, A Farewell to Ice shows us ice's role on our planet, its history, and the true dimensions of the current global crisis, offering readers concrete advice about what they can do and what must be done.

Title : A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic
Edition Language : English
ISBN : 9780241009413
Format Type :

    A Farewell to Ice: A Report from the Arctic Reviews

  • David

    This is a marvelous, short book by the leading expert on the Arctic. Peter Wadhams interleaves his own participation in research experiments with his narrative on climate change. He shows his own priv...

  • Brian Clegg

    This is a really important book from a highly experienced researcher on the Arctic ice and the impact of climate change - but it falls down as popular science. A lot of material in the introductory ch...

  • A Reader

    Only a few people in the world know ice better than Peter Wadhams. A professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge, Peter Wadhams is a world authority on sea ice. His book ‘A Farewell to Ice’ is a repor...

  • Jack O'Donnell

    BOOK OF THE YEAR.A writer has one imperative or simple rule – read. Often I have little understanding of what I’m reading. Usually there is a but here. I do not understand Einstein’s Theory of R...

  • An Te

    Chilling, bleak but plain truthful reading. Whoever reads this book isn't going to do it by accident. But to those who have read it, it is one of the key climate change books you must read. I would pu...

  • Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance

    Peter Wadhams has been studying ice for fifty years. He tells the story of climate change as evidenced by the melting of the Arctic ice caps, and he uses scientific data collected and research of the ...

  • Aali

    An absolute must read. Wadhams describes multiple facets of the effects of climate change and beyond, breaking down scientific phrasing and processes into patient layman terms to give everyone the opp...

  • Usha Alexander

    A bold work for our timesDr. Wadhams makes a clear and cogent case about the peril of our times. He says what few others have the courage to say, and he brings the receipts. Anyone interested in learn...

  • Sally

    Most of the book is a very clearly written examination of ice, particularly arctic ice -- how and why ice forms; what has been happening to arctic ice over the last 50+ years, both in distribution and...

  • Chantal Lyons

    I think this book could've been much more engagingly written, but given how informative it is about something so important to the human race and the planet, it deserves four stars.It isn't quite as ac...