A Farewell to Ice

A Farewell to Ice

A Report from the Arctic

Summary

'Astonishing ... beautiful, compelling and terrifying' Observer

'Wadhams' writing sparkles ... a lyrical sense of wonder at the natural world ... essential reading ... may be the best reader-friendly account of the greenhouse effect available to date' John Burnside, New Statesman


Ice is beautiful and complex. It regulates our planet's temperature. And it is vanishing - fast. Peter Wadhams, the world's leading expert on sea ice, draws on his lifetime's research in the Arctic region to illuminate what is happening, what it means for the future, and what can be done.

'This most experienced and rational scientist states what so many other researchers privately fear but cannot publicly say' John Vidal, Guardian

'Wadhams brings huge expertise to his subject - and he is an excellent writer' Martin Rees

'Utterly extraordinary' Jonathon Porritt

Reviews

  • Wadhams's particular combination - of scientific passion, a lyrical sense of wonder at the natural world, an ability to pluck clear analogies from the air, and outspoken analysis of consumer-capitalist politics - marks out A Farewell to Ice as essential reading.
    John Burnside, New Statesman

About the author

Peter Wadhams

Peter Wadhams is the UK's most experienced sea ice scientist. He was Director of the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge from 1987 to 1992 and Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge from 1992 to 2015. He has made more than 50 expeditions to both polar regions, working from ice camps, icebreakers, aircraft, and, uniquely, Royal Navy submarines (making six submerged voyages to the North Pole). His research group in Cambridge has been the only UK group with the capacity to carry out field work on sea ice. He has also held visiting professorships at the National Institute of Polar Research, Tokyo, the US Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, the University of Washington, Seattle and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla.

Peter Wadhams has been awarded the W.S. Bruce Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1977), the UK Polar Medal (1987) and the Italgas Prize for Environmental Sciences (1990). He is an Associate Professor at the Laboratoire d'Océanographie de Villefranche, and a Professor at the Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Member of the Finnish Academy.
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