Thin Ice : Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains

by Bowen, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780805064438
• ISBN10: 0805064435
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-03
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Summary

"While mainstream science has focused on polar ice to find clues about climate change, Lonnie Thompson has been risking his career and life on the highest and most remote ice caps along the equator. In the process he has changed the science of climatology." "Scientist and expert climber Mark Bowen joined Thompson's crew on several expeditions, including an eye-opening ascent in East Africa that revealed why the snows of Kilimanjaro will be gone in fifteen years. Bowen also includes an account of the dangerous Huascaran ascent where Thompson's discovery of an unknown type of glacial ice revealed how pieces of the global climate puzzle fit together. Bowen also takes us deep inside retreating glaciers from China and the Tibetan Plateau across South America's Andes and to Africa." "Thin Ice explains what Thompson's hard-won data tell us about climate systems that have long perplexed the scientific community. Even more important, we learn what the equatorial ice reveals about global warming and the earth's probable future."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

A well-known scientist, alpinist, magazine and popular-science writer, Mark Bowen holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT.

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Call from the Blue	1	(6)
PART I: THE SAJAMA EXPEDITION
The Mountain God	7	(4)
An Island in the Sky	11	(20)
PART II: EARLY DAYS
Where Next?	31	(7)
Beginnings	38	(15)
A Decade on Quelccaya	53	(24)
PART III: THE WARMING SETS IN
First Signs	77	(22)
The Great Experiment	99	(26)
Temperature Follows Suit	125	(12)
China Opens Up	137	(28)
PART IV: THE ESSENCE OF LIFE
A City by a Lake	165	(23)
The Seesaw	188	(21)
PART V: MORE PIECES FOR THE PUZZLE
Casting About	209	(12)
From Tibet	221	(14)
. . . . To Peru	235	(12)
Altering the Course of Thinking	247	(25)
Pushing Back the Bar	272	(18)
Solving the Mercer Problem	290	(22)
Endurance and Tragedy on Dasuopu	312	(15)
PART VI: KILIMANJARO
Scratching the Surface	327	(25)
Drilling Deeper	352	(24)
The Story in the Snows	376	(21)
Notes	397	(26)
References	423	(22)
Acknowledgments	445	(4)
Index	449