The ferocious summer

the long version

The Antarctic Peninsula is for all of us an early warning system. This brilliant book tells the story of Antarctic warming and of how scientists are piecing together the jigsaw of causes and impacts, here in particular through a study of the changing lives and habits of a group of Adelie penguins. To write this book Meredith Hooper worked with key scientists in bases, on ice breakers and in research vessels. Her story is very precisely located in time and space, focusing on the work and ideas of individual scientists and on the local animals. In it she memorably brings outsiders non-specialist awareness to the crucial understanding of what is happening, now, to the planet we share.