Thin Ice (John MacRae Books) [Hardcover]

This is a hard book to categorize because it contains so many valuable treasures. Five major strands are woven together into a highly readable and enjoyable narrative. As a biography, it tells the story of Lonnie Thompson, a contemporary climatologist, his passion for scientific understanding, and his integrity and physical and intellectual courage. Drilling ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica has been a major source of knowledge of the climatic history of our planet, its temperature changes, and the composition of its atmosphere. But Lonnie Thompson realized that ice cores taken from glaciers found on high mountains closer to the equator held valuable secrets of the earth's climatic history not found in polar ice, and that they were essential to our understanding of global climate change both historically, and for modeling and predicting future changes. Furthermore, this valuable historical record is rapidly disappearing. Glaciers, with records of up to 700,000 years, are quickly shrinking. Kilimanjaro's will vanish completely within ten to twenty years. But until recently, there was little understanding, funding, or academic prestige within the scientific establishment for drilling for equatorial ice. Thompson's persistence in obtaining these ice cores, and the contributions they have made to science are the overall theme of the book.

It is to some extent a mountaineering book, but this is a subtheme. Mark Bowen, a scientist, writer and mountaineer, was invited to join Thompson on several high mountain expeditions, and describes these and others as well. Thompson took ice cores from glacial peaks in the Andes of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, from Kilimanjaro, and from the Himalayas, and the mountains north of the Tibetan plateau. The hardships and danger of high altitude mountaineering, and the logistic difficulties of transporting equipment, and bringing back ice samples are vividly detailed. However, Thompson, and the international team of scientists who worked with him over many years never climbed a mountain for the sport of it, but were always motivated by their passion for science.

Third, this is the story of the science of climatic change, and the gradual unfolding of our understanding of it over the past 150 years. The details revealed themselves slowly as more data was obtained from many places in the world, and from many sources, not just ice cores, but sea bed drilling, biological sampling, and others. And as the data emerged, the sophistication of mathematical correlating and modeling also matured. The clarity and detail of our understanding of both the past, and possible future scenarios continues to mature, but scientific consensus at the present leave little room to doubt that global temperature will rise as atmospheric carbon dioxide caused by burning fossil fuels increases, that polar ice will continue to melt, that the ocean level will rise significantly, that extreme weather will increase, and that global patterns of wet and dry regions will shift, although it is not possible to say how they will shift. The explanatory sections of the book are not only clear and easy to follow but reliable because Mark Bowen is both a writer and a trained scientist able to offer a path of clarity and balanced judgement through confusing arguments and claims.

Fourth is the anthropological story of the rise and decline of civilizations in the Andes, in North Africa, in Mesopotamia, and elsewhere. Within the last three decades, as climatologists have published increasingly detailed historical temperature and rainfall data, it has become possible to correlate these with archeological discoveries and cross check the dates. Time after time the story shows the emergence of a city-state which grows in size and prosperity until it hits the limits of sustainable agriculture. Then the climate changes, people starve or migrate, and the nexus of civilization moves elsewhere.

Finally, there is the story of the interaction of science and politics, and what happens when the findings of science conflict with what is convenient for political or industrial leaders to have us believe. This theme is presented in a factual rather than polemic or accusatory style. But the ability of the oil industry to create controversy where there should be none by hiring their own "research" and creating confusion by focusing on minor disagreements and ignoring overall consensus is unsettling.

This is an important, informative and enjoyable book which deserves to be widely read and discussed.

For years it's been a given among climatologists that the first and most severe indications of climate change - "global warming" - would be at the Poles. Without intending to, Lonnie Thompson has been slowly but steadily revising that dogma. Real change, he tells us through Mark Bowen's account, is already visible in the retreat of glaciers. The dynamics of high altitude atmospheric processes, particularly in equatorial regions, are shrinking glaciers at an alarming rate. Thompson's investigations demonstrate that our warming world is in serious difficulties. Bowen, who is a physicist and a recreational climber, is able to impart the work of Thompson and his colleagues with enthusiasm. Bowen virtually takes you by the hand to share his experiences in glacial ice extraction and measurement. The analyses erase the last doubt about climate change and our need to reduce our contribution to it.

Although Thompson is the centre of this story, the real pioneer is John Mercer. Described by Bowen as "touched by genius", it was Mercer who effectively initiated investigation of "tropical ice" - when he wasn't jogging naked through city parks. Although the studies were originally intended to map the actions of Ice Age glaciers, investigation became more comprehensive. Now, glacial ice is revealing the pace of change is faster in our era than in the past and accellerating rapidly. The problems resulting from that meltdown are, and will continue to be, severe. Beyond the raising of sea levels from melting ice, changes in the weather are locked into feedback loops that are already having serious impact on human endeavours. Bowen's depiction of Andean societies' reaction to drought and catastrophic rainfall should give any reader pause. Lacking water, all farming communities, ancient or modern, suffer and die away. Any civilisation relying on them will follow in collapsing. Nor is the evidence and the issues confined to the Andes and lost civilisations. Asian mountains are being exposed by withdrawing ice. The meltwater upon which millions in China, India and other nations in the area depend, is disappearing as you read this.

What might have been an adventure story by a part-time climber and full-time scientist, instead becomes a serious account of what Lonnie Thompson has been revealing. Rather, what he has enticed from the ice. The drilling operation and the transport of ice make thrilling reading. We are teased along over whether the ice can be carried off a mountain top to a shipper by hot air balloon. We learn that there's more than one way to plunge a drill into ice. Once it's down there, can we coax it back to the surface? What's entailed in climbing high mountains besides altititude sickness? One of Thompson's students, who seemed mostly resistant to that affliction succumbs to an entirely different one. A porter, lugging a large chest of cores down Kibo, loses control with disastrous results. Yet, through it all, Thompson doggedly pursues answers to his questions. Bowen's relationship with Lonnie and his wife Ellen, Thompson's closest professional colleague, allows the writer to extol the achievements without depleting the researcher's humanity.

There are numerous books available on climate change, but few that depict how the science is done. It would have been easy for Bowen to delve into the arcane measurements and analysis techniques, leaving many readers puzzled at methods and their meaning. He's careful to strike the right chords - showing what the numbers mean and what they're based on. Ultimately, however, this is a story about people and the work they do. He explains how they rejoice at success, but aren't confounded by failure. They know how to adapt to changing circumstances and turn disaster into achievement. The information Thompson and his colleagues gained may put the adaptability of all humanity to an even harder test. Read this and find out why. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

This is travelogue, musings, science, story-telling, and a gentle (non-polemic) argument about a critical present-day issue. The previous reviewers (especially the first two) and Bill McKibben's dust-jacket comment are good guides. Some of the author's descriptions of mountain scenery are quite beautiful. Although I always have been concerned about climate change based on the "precautionary principle" and "responsibility to future generations" ideas, this book helped me put some meat on the thin bones of my understanding. It also reached me at an emotional level, since the reader spends so much time with the scientists and get a close-up view of how they arrive at their understandings.

The book does not simply follow a chronological narrative, but branches off for visits to related topics. I found this style of organization effective and fun. (Like a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon where you frequently stop for a day to explore side canyons.)

There are 24 pages of notes and 21 pages of (about 400-500) references.