This book celebrates the Arctic, exploring the natural history that has so inspired generations. Early travelers to the Arctic brought back tales of amazing creatures and of the endurance required of visitors, the Arctic becoming a land of inspiration and imagination. Adventurers test themselves against it. Its wildlife still amazes - when film and television show Earth's natural wonders it is always the Polar Regions that draw the biggest audiences....

An award-winning science journalist explains what Earth's frozen waters tell us about the past, present, and future of humanity. "The Kingdom of Frost," or what scientists call the cryosphere, refers to all of Earth's frozen waters. Glaciers, ice caps, and fields of Arctic snow-the cryosphere is vital to our survival. It supplies us with water and helps cool cities from Bangladesh to Bangkok, Los Angeles to Oslo. In this captivating, eye-opening...

David J. Drewry is honorary fellow at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, and former director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge and of the British Antarctic Survey. His books include Glacial Geologic Processes and Antarctica and Environmental Change. A world-renowned glaciologist, he has a mountain and a glacier named after him in Antarctica. He lives in Cottingham, England. A wondrous story of scientific endeavor-probing...

The Arctic is thawing. In summer, cruise ships sail through the once ice-clogged Northwest Passage, lakes form on top of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and polar bears swim farther and farther in search of waning ice floes. At the opposite end of the world, floating Antarctic ice shelves are shrinking. Mountain glaciers are in retreat worldwide, unleashing flash floods and avalanches. We are on thin ice-and with melting permafrost's potential to let loose...