Author(s): Veronika Meduna

Antarctic | Science

‘For some scientific questions, Antarctica is the best – and sometimes the only – place to look for answers. Visiting this frozen landscape is to gain a fresh perspective on our world, almost like going to another planet and looking back with renewed wonder on Earth.’ In Science on Ice, award-winning science broadcaster and writer Veronika Meduna follows deep-south scientists who huddle in tents and dive under ice to study ancient mud, fat fish, migrating penguins and fossilised forests. Meduna presents us with a fascinating frozen land – Antarctica’s ice cap holds three quarters of the planet’s fresh water, its layers of ice and sediment record past climate conditions going back millions of years, and the oceans around it drive the global food chain and a giant conveyor belt of currents that transports heat around the globe. The creatures that call Antarctica home have evolved to survive in conditions hostile to life, and the continent’s permanently ice-covered lakes may even hold the secret to how life began on Earth – and what it might look like elsewhere. And though it is the only continent without permanent human habitation, Antartica may yet hold the key to our survival. In this lavishly illustrated book Meduna introduces us to an exhilarating landscape, to fascinating discoveries and to the people making them – those scientists tackling fundamental questions about life and the world around us from the frozen continent.