Land of Wondrous Cold

Subtitled 'the race to discover Antarctica and unlock the secrets of its ice', this engagingly-written the book tells the story of the epic and heroic adventures of French, British and American expeditions to Antarctica from 1838 to 1842. The names of these intrepid explorers, James Ross, Dumont D'Urville and Charles Wilkes (the model for Captain Ahab) are commemorated in the geography of the area, although for D'Urville, it is his wife's name that features, also in the Adelie penguins. The conditions of pack ice in relation to the wooden structures of 19th century sailing ships were terrifying, especially given the possibility of getting stuck and freezing to death. The book recounts the stories of these rival expeditions in relation to each other in vivid detail come on bringing out the various personalities involved, including the young Joseph Hooker who was carrying out a pioneering work on biological oceanography. The national stakes were very high in terms of prestige and reward. Nor is there any shortage of tragedy when, for instance, D'Urville receives a letter from his wife saying that their son had died of cholera; and, ironically, both D'Urville and his wife were incinerated in a dreadful railway accident on his return to Paris.

Various interludes punctuate the text with interesting background material and create a link with the other main theme of the book in terms of the history of Earth's climate and the extraordinary transformations that Antarctica has undergone. Nowadays, the danger is the potential melting of the ice sheets and the resulting rising sea level. Its initial glaciation occurred 34 million years ago and two principal warm periods since that time, the mid-Miocene and the mid-Pliocine, involved atmospheric carbon levels ranging between 400 and 600 ppm. The danger is warm water erosion and tipping points for East Antarctic sea surface temperatures leading to marine ice sheet instability. Antarctica enthusiasts will find this essential and gripping reading.