book is almost two books in one, We cover the early days of Greenland exploring, where there death defying treks using skis, dogsleds, and Icelandic horses, involved some scientific observation but mostly just oldschool "because it was there" exploration.
It's fun to read about although you'll definitely have your feelings about the explorers, some of whom were total jerks to the native Inuit population, Then we morph into Greenland exploration that is less death defying in the age of radios and supplies that can be airdropped and military bases and more strictly scientific.
There's lots of interesting things about all that we can learn about earth's history simply by studying the ice, But here's where things get globally depressing as the author details how very many years ago the scientific community started identifying the problem of melting ice.
He tries to end on a hopeful notehere in the ice we can see where the world stopped pumping lead into the atmosphere because it was poisoning us and if we did that, we can stop with the CO, rightbut even his best effort isn't quite good enough for me to finish this book feeling anything except "our species is doomed.
" I received an Advanced Copy of The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey into Greenlands Buried Past and Our Perilous Future by Jon Gertner from the publisher Random House through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
What Its About: A history of glacierology, with scientific fact interluded in,
I'll be honest, I really didn't love this, I'm a scientist but know nothing about Glaciers and Greenland and so was excited to see the implications of global warming but I really found it rather dull.
I would say if you have a passion for glaciers or Greenland, you may find this book fun but it was not for me.
I found this book fascinating! There was so much information about Greenland, none of which I knew, and I found myself getting deeper into caring about this earth and its future.
Never thought Id get so interested but I did and I think its because the writing was so good, Beautiful descriptions of scenery, life on this island and of those who came to explore it, If you arent that knowledgeable about the ice sheet, you will be after you finish this book and you will want to read all you can about how Greenland is changing the planet and perhaps our lives.
This is a fanfreakingtastic, though somewhat depressing, book, Ive long been fascinated by the coldest regions of our planet, and of the intrepid explorers who have mapped them, and the hardy native groups who have made these areas their home for generations.
I wasnt quite sure what I was getting into with this book, but it quickly drew me in and held me captive forpages,
Gertner begins his book with a look at modern scientific research being done on this huge island covered by ice, but then moves back in time to the earliest known settlement.
Each chapter of the first half features an expedition funded by Europeans and Americans, hoping to crack the mystery of the large ice sheet, Gertner knows how to write, and his book reads more like a novel in places, though its clear hes done his research thoroughly, The second half of the book reveals discoveries scientists have made regarding the history of the earth through analyzing ice tubes drilled thousands of feet down, as well as advances in our understanding of climate change.
Thats where the depressing aspect of this book comes in our climate is changing rapidly and it doesnt seem to matter to most people,
I would have liked to have learned a little more about the Inuit living in Greenland, especially their traditions and culture, as well as how the advance of modern technology and the retreat of the glaciers have affected them.
Gertner does do a quick mention of it, but I would have liked a little more detail, possibly an entire chapter devoted to these people,
This is a highly fascinating and important book, and one I can recommend wholeheartedly to everyone, I read an advance reader copy of Jon Gertners The Ice at the End of the World, in uncorrected proof ebook, provided to me by Penguin / Random House through netgalley, in return for promising to write an honest review.
The book is scheduled for release on June,, Jon Gertner is an American writer, the author of sitelinkThe Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, which I have not yet read, and a longtime contributor to the New York Times Magazine.
The book first follows a historical approach to the exploration of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and then transitions into a historical presentation of the subsequent scientific investigations, right up to.
Greenland is the largest island in the world, located in the Arctic Ocean between North America and Europe, and barely inhabited, It is largely covered with a milethick continental glacier much like that which retreated from northern North America and Europe a mere,years ago and like the one which still covers Antarctica.
Gertner covers the first expeditions to cross that Ice Sheet episodically, beginning with Fridtjof Nansensexpedition of five men pulling five heavy sledges, The stories introduce the characters, describe the techniques and technologies used, include interactions with the sparse indigenous cultures, and dramatically trace the events of those critical crossings.
An interesting historical photograph introduces each story, and they reminded me of memoirs of the early Antarctic expeditions I have previously read, Indeed, a few of the individuals are the same, Up until the interregnum of World War II, the interests of these early explorers such as Robert Peary, Knud Rasmussen, Peter Freuchen, and Alfred Wegener were personal fame and national prestige.
Some data was collected, but primarily of a cartographic nature,
A new era of exploration began in Greenland at the onset of the Cold War in the lates, Because Greenland is strategically located between the nuclear superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union, the US spent enormous amounts of money and manpower developing the military utility of the region, even offered to purchase it in its entirety from Denmark.
Military technology and logistics required large amounts of accurate data, and natural science researchers were able to quietly piggyback, However, with the development of intercontinental missiles based in the homelands, the highspending period passed, leaving infrastructure in place for more purely scientific endeavors, With time it has become apparent that the ice sheet is not in a steady state, and not even just receding at a geological pace, GPSindexed air and satellite observations have detailed how the retreat is accelerating, Deep core samples of the ice have shown that periods of relatively rapid climatic change do occur, The system is complex with positively reinforced cycles that could continue to drive ice sheet collapse once initiated, Coming up to the present day, Gertner focuses on research into the mechanisms of those sudden changes, which could potentially push sea level rise in unexpected large steps over the currentmm per year.
The Ice at the End of the World is both an entertaining history, and a clear explanation of the current state of knowledge of glaciology and its relationship to oceans and climate.
This book is timely, and I am highly recommending it, The most impactful part of this book was that in the stories it told about the history of Greenland exploratory by adventurers and scientists, it told the story of the ice sheet's changing climate.
There was a clear progression throughout the stories, without the author pointing it out, of a steadily warming climate as explorations spanned decades, Most poignant was the first science settlement dug into the glacier and the increasing pressure of accumulating snow and ice collapsing roofs to current science bases built on stilts and having the glacier disappear beneath them.
Arctic exploration was extremely dangerous and took some highly dedicated/obsessive personalities to undergo the arduous trips necessary to learn about this massive ice island, Gertner documents these first expeditions in Part“Explorations”, There were Fridtjof Nansen and Otto Sverdrup, Robert Peary, Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen multiple times between, Alfred Wegenerandand others that made the trip before motorized vehicles made the task less difficult.
These men were interested in mapping out Greenland, but not pursuing scientific inquiry,
In Part II, “Investigations”, Gertner follows the evolution of scientific studies of the ice sheet betweenand, This is the section that I found most fascinating but then, GR readers know that I am a bit if a science nerd, The author details the challenges that needed to be overcome to obtain continuous ice cores suitable for establishing a chronological record of Greenlands history, Eventually, a multiyear, international effort provided the changes in climate that occurred over the past,years, What they discovered is the core provides evidence of previous climate change occurrences, and that they happened over much shorter timespans than scientists predicted,
Most important, Gertner provides us with the descriptions of the upheavals that may happen when Greenlands three quadrillion tons of ice liquefy, There are roughly a halfbillion people currently living on land that will disappear as the sea rises, And it is unlikely that there is the collective political will to stop greenhouse gases that continue to melt Greenlands ice a little more each year.
Recommend Gertner's wellresearched account,
This book has three themes, all centered on Greenlands ice sheet,miles long, nearlymiles wide and up to,feet deep holding three quadrillion tons of ice.
Gertner begins with adventure describing explorations of Greenlands ice covered interior from thes through thes, In this part Gertner gives us the personal stories of the explorers, the risks they took and the hardships they endured, The second section of the book skips to the late forties following WWII, Exploration continues but the adventure is largely gone as vehicles and planes take over from men with iron wills, dog sleds and horses, Gertner still profiles the people but mostly in terms of their contributions to science, The story becomes one of scientific discovery, This leads to the third story, climate change, the future of Greenlands ice sheet and glaciers, and what that holds for the world, My notes follow.
Gertner begins his history of explorations of Greenlands interior with the expedition of Fridtjof Nansen in, At the time no one had crossed Greenlands interior, The west coast of Greenland was accessible with Danish Settlements and native Inuit ones, The east coast was inaccessible, It was enclosed in miles of pack ice drifting on the seas offshore, Nansen would cross east to west, It was simpler to start in the west but there was no exit once you got to the east coast, Nansen had a ship offload him and his men on the pack ice, They took two boats to navigate the ice, They nearly drifted out to sea trapped by the ice, It took them eleven days just to make it to shore, Then they had to climb the high cliffs of ice and avoid the many crevasses which could mean instant death, Once on the ice sheet they could use snowshoes and skis, They pulled their sleds themselves so they wouldnt have to carry food for dogs, Their trip across the narrower south end wasmiles, It took them about ten weeks from the time they left their ship to reach a settlement on the west coast, The interior of Greenland was bleak, barren and COLD, Their success required meticulous planning and the determination to persevere against the bitter elements, A fall or injury could be catastrophic, They became the first men to cross the interior of Greenland, Nansen would return to Denmark to widespread acclaim,
The next expedition was by an American Robert Peary in, He had hoped to be first to cross Greenland, Now he felt he had to do more than Nansen, He decided to travel on the ice sheet near the north coast of Greenland going from the west coast to the east coast and then returning,miles each way.
Perry spent the winter on the west coast so he could get an early start at the end of April, His team would use sled dogs, He counted on excursions down the ice sheet to the north coast to hunt for muskox and seals to replenish his food, The north coast was uncharted territory, He was taking a big chance, but it worked, Peary would make the first maps of the north coast, They reached their destination on the northwest most part of the coast on July, He planted a U. S. flag on top of a cliff overlooking a glacier, Hungry and with very little little food to spare they returned in early August, Peary too achieved notoriety and hit the lecture tours back in the U, S.
A more serious effort to document Greenland was made by Knud Rasmussen, He grew up in Greenland and was/th Inuit, He moved with his family to Denmark when he was twelve, Inspired by Nansen and Peary he vowed to return, But he did more than just demonstrate his prowess at conquering the icy interior, He documented the geology, the ecology and the culture of the Inuit, Inhe traveled along Greenlands west and north coasts going from Inuit village to village ending with the Polar Inuit, the northern most tribe in the world.
His books about the Inuit, their beliefs and practices, published in, made him a national celebrity in Denmark, He would spend the next several decades recording tens of thousands of pages of notes of his interviews and impressions of the Inuit, He established a permanent trading station on the northeast coast at a settlement his partner named Thule Toolee station, In AprilRasmussen and his team begin an expedition of undetermined length traveling on the ice sheet near the north coast of Greenland where they could hunt and then to look for evidence of a long missing explorer.
They mapped new areas of the coast and revisited Pearys cliff, They never found traces of the explorer, In September they just made it back before running out of food, InRasmussen led a second expedition along the north coast taking along a geologist and botanist, Sadly they had insufficient food, the dogs were eaten, the botanist died of starvation and one other man got disappeared and died, These trips were exceedingly dangerous and run with razor thin margins for error,
Inthe German Alfred Wegner led an expedition of four menmiles from the northern east coast to the central west coast, They spent the winter near their starting point to get going as early as possible in the spring, Rather than dogs they used Icelandic horses to pull the sleds, all of which died on the way, Suffering numerous near calamities and injuries, the men arrived on the west coast barely alive, Wegner would return to Greenland into set up a weather monitoring and research station in the center of the ice sheet, somemiles from the west coast.
Three men stayed the winter at the station, one because he was too injured to return, They lived in quarters they dug out below the ice, Turns out, living in the ice was much more comfortable than living in tents on the surface, The real problem was getting enough supplies to last until spring, Wegner led a resupply mission in the fall which ran into constant delays but made it delivering the needed supplies, The weather turned brutal. He and his companion did not make it back, Wegners body was found the next spring, His partners never was. No one knows exactly what happened to them, The station was resupplied in the spring and the men were determined to conduct the experiments Wegner planned, They dug afoot shaft down in the ice measuring density at different depths, They set off explosives to determine the depth of the ice sheet from waves reflected from bedrock,
The age of machines entered the exploration of Greenland inwhen Frenchman PaulEmile Viktor used weasels, WWII army vehicles designed for harsh cold weather conditions, to carry his party to the center of the ice sheet near where Wegner had set up his station.
They were able to erect comfortable quarters with electricity, They could be resupplied by air, Teams of eight men spent two winters there and continued the weather and ice sheet measurements of Wegners team, Digging down into the snow, the scientists could determine the annual snowfall and even past temperatures as Wegners team had also done establishing a baseline for future measurements.
They even bored through the ice to take the first core, but the quality was poor and the analytical techniques available were limited,
Everything changed when, in the fears of the cold war, The U, S. began building a huge airbase inat Thule, near Rasmussens old trading post, A decades old discussion with Rasmussen led one of the planners to suggest the site, The Inuit settlement there was moved north as the base drove away wildlife and was destroying the indigenous culture, The establishment of the base enabled exploration on a greatly expanded level and the U, S. government would fund much of the research, The military needed to understand the stability and future of the ice sheet and glaciers, This gave a big impetus to the development of modern glaciology, Henri Bader was a Swiss citizen and chief scientist of SPIRE which had been set up by the U, S. Army Corps of Engineers to study snow, ice and permafrost, The military gave him a big budget which he put to good use, While personally he was interested in the structure of snowflakes and how their composition affected glaciers and the ice sheet, he built a team for other work.
He hired Carl Benson who would transform the local studies by Wegner and Viktor into studies across the ice sheet determining annual snow fall levels and temperatures throughout much of Greenland.
These measurements takenwould be valuable sixty years later to show where the ice was receding and where it was stable,
Inthe U, S. began building Camp Century in Greenlands interior, It was built under the ice, The purpose was declared to be that of improving building and survival practices in the Arctic, Another purpose was stated to be scientific exploration, which was a cover for the real purpose, to find out whether missiles could be successfully placed under the ice sheet.
But the money for exploration was well used, More ice cores were drilled, Drilling techniques improved as did analysis, As opposed to sea bed cores, ice cores contained air bubbles which could reveal past climate, In thes they were drilling to bedrock uncovering thousands of years of atmosphere, The U. S. lost interest in Camp Century and future exploration funding had to come from traditional sources which limited operations, Still inafoot ice core in excellent condition was drilled which now could be inspected with mass spectrometers for oxygen and hydrogen isotopes that would reveal the climate over,years ago.
Intwo teams at the summit of the ice sheet in Greenland drilled ice cores,feet down before they hit bedrock, The sites were strategically placedkilometers apart to not interfere with each other but to allow comparison to confirm their findings, Theice core had noticed rapid changes in temperatures,years ago, Was this an anomaly The two new ice cores matched each other perfectly and confirmed abrupt climate change,,years ago average temperatures rose aboutdegrees Fahrenheit in just a few years, The earths atmosphere quickly transitioned from the last ice age, The reason isnt known, but the most prevalent theory is that ocean currents changed involving positive feedback loops, Some think atmospheric circulation changed, It may have been both,
In thes new technology came to the fore, NASA began using aircraft with laser altimeters which combined with GPS allowed accurate mapping of the elevation of the Greenland ice sheet, Ina report based on six years of data showed that parts of the ice sheet were quickly thinning, InNASA launched a satellite, ICESat, which performed the same measurements over Greenland and Antarctica constantly, Another satellite, GRACE, measured minute changes in the Earths gravity, Gravity is not even over the earths surface, The loss of ice over Greenland would reduce the gravity measured there, A report of GRACEs findings inshowed that Greenlands annual ice loss wasbillion tons, Ina satellite showed that melt water was all over the ice sheet, its entire surface was melting, The arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet,
ICESat failed and was retired in, GRACE continued but couldnt give the fine detail provided by ICESat, So laser altimeter surveying again was done by airplane, Glaciers became the focus of understanding how and where the ice was lost, Glaciers regularly calve icebergs and drain meltwater to the sea, Glaciologists soon realized that many glaciers were unstable and that if some collapsed they alone would raise ocean levels significantly: Jacobshavn in Greenland by a foot and Thwaites in Antarctica by two feet.
Worse they are supporting structures for the ice sheets, Thwaites holds back the West Antarctic ice sheet which contains enough ice to raise ocean levels twelve feet,
In thes both atmospheric and sea temperatures were rising, Arctic sea ice was rapidly receding allowing the darker water to absorb more heat creating a positive feedback loop, Half the ice loss in Greenland is through the glaciers, the other half is on the surface of the ice sheet, Some of this water is stored in the underlying layers of the ice sheet creating an aquifer the size of West Virginia, One day this water could gush into the ocean, As the ice recedes and more human and biological activity takes place around the ice sheet, more dust, soot and other particles land on it, darkening it and melting it faster.
Climate scientists also worry about the release of methane, a strong greenhouse gas, from permafrost which would create another positive feedback loop,
The major question scientists are asking is will the rise in temperatures lead to abrupt changes and if so when, It could take many decades or centuries for large glaciers and ice sheets to collapse or it could happen sooner and abruptly, The scientists dont know. The current Arctic warmth is enough to eventually melt the Greenland ice sheet which would raise sea levels over twenty feet, Unless the world lowers carbon emissions significantly the loss of the ice sheet is inevitable, So even if this and the next generation dont have to deal with it, later ones will, The current consensus of climatologists calls for a one meter,feet rise in seas level by, But it doesnt stop there, larger sea level rises following are already “committed” meaning inevitable based on current conditions, The current commitment is.meters.feet. If temperatures continue to rise this century as they have, then a twenty foot sea level rise would be committed, Even the one meter
rise would mean some low lying nations would be destroyed, beaches and shorelines eroded, increased flooding, infrastructure and property damaged, and aquifers contaminated with salt water.
Along the U. S. coastmillion people and.million homes are on property less than four feet above high tide, Rich coastal nations like the U, S. would pay a heavy price poor coastal nations would be devastated, .