Author: Gillen D’Arcy Wood
Antarctica, the ice kingdom hosting the South Pole, looms large in the human imagination.
The secrets of this vast frozen desert have long tempted explorers, but its brutal climate and glacial shores notoriously resist human intrusion. Land of Wondrous Cold tells a gripping story of the pioneering 19th century voyages, when British, French, and American commanders raced to penetrate Antarctica’s glacial rim for unknown lands beyond.
These intrepid Victorian explorers — James Ross, Dumont D’Urville, and Charles Wilkes — laid the foundation for our current understanding of Terra Australis Incognita, says a review on the Princeton University Press website.
Today, the white continent poses new challenges, as scientists race to uncover Earth’s climate history, which is recorded in the south polar ice and ocean floor, and to monitor the increasing instability of the Antarctic ice cap, which threatens to inundate coastal cities worldwide.
Gillen D’Arcy Wood describes Antarctica’s role in a planetary drama of plate tectonics, climate change, and species evolution.
