When the Ice Is Gone: What a Greenland Ice Core Reveals About Earth's Tumultuous History and Perilous Future

by Paul Bierman

Overview

Paul Bierman’s realization that Greenland’s ice sheet melted when Earth was no warmer than today sounds an alarm for our planet.

In 2018, lumps of frozen soil, collected from the bottom of the world’s first deep ice core and lost for decades, reappeared in Denmark. When geologist Paul Bierman and his team first melted a piece of this unique material, they were shocked to find perfectly preserved leaves, twigs, and moss. That observation led them to a startling discovery: Greenland’s ice sheet had melted naturally before, about 400,000 years ago. The remote island’s ice was far more fragile than scientists had realized—unstable even without human interference.

In When the Ice Is Gone, Bierman traces the story of this extraordinary finding, revealing how it radically changes our understanding of the Earth and its climate. A longtime researcher in Greenland, he begins with a brief history of the island, both human and geological, explaining how over the last century scientists have learned to read the historical record in ice, deciphering when volcanoes exploded and humans started driving cars fueled by leaded gasoline.

For the origins of ice coring, Bierman brings us to Camp Century, a U.S. military base built inside Greenland’s ice sheet, where engineers first drilled through mile-thick ice and into the frozen soil beneath. Decades later, a few feet of that long-frozen earth would reveal its secrets—ancient warmth and melted ice.

Changes in Greenland reverberate around the world, with ice melting high in the arctic affecting people everywhere. Bierman explores how losing Greenland’s ice will catalyze devastating events if we don’t change course and address climate change now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781324020684
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/20/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304

About the Author

Paul Bierman is professor of environmental science at the University of Vermont, where he develops methods to understand ice and date rocks. He has published in Science and Nature, and his findings have been covered by CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Weather Channel, among others. He lives in Burlington, Vermont.

Editorial Reviews

06/17/2024

Bierman, a geology professor at the University of Vermont, debuts with a granular account of studying Greenland ice cores. He recounts how in 2019, he joined an international team of scientists who stumbled upon long-neglected cores extracted from the Greenland ice sheet in the 1960s. Using them to reconstruct climatological history, the team discovered that Greenland’s ice sheet had melted at some point in the last million years, when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were significantly lower than they are today. The implication is that the ice sheet is more fragile than previously believed, Bierman argues, warning that if it melts again, it could “put a half-million square miles of land underwater and displace several hundred million people.” Bierman presents an accessible discussion of the scientific methods used to date samples (to determine “the ages of boulders left behind by melting glacial ice... measure the concentration of isotopes in a sample and divide by the production rate of each isotope”). Unfortunately, extensive background on the logistical difficulties of maintaining the tunnel and heating systems at Camp Century, the northern Greenland U.S. Army outpost where the cores were collected, distracts from the book’s focus on climate change. The result is an intermittently stimulating glimpse into the workings of climate science. Photos. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"We are Scrooge and Bierman is Marley’s ghost with a fascinating tale, all too true, of a great ice sheet that holds our future."

James E. Hansen

"In his gripping new book, When the Ice Is Gone, paleoclimate expert Paul Bierman provides a firsthand account—through the lens of science and history, of how human-caused warming is rapidly melting the massive Greenland ice sheet and the dire consequences this poses for us and our planet. Read this book to be informed about the problem and inspired to make a difference."

Michael E. Mann

"Paul Bierman paints a vivid portrait not only of the human characters involved with exploration of the Greenland ice cap but also of the personality of the ice itself. Both the humans and the ice are more idiosyncratic—and more sensitive—than one might expect. When the Ice Is Gone is a cautionary story about hubris in the Anthropocene."

Marcia Bjornerud

"When the Ice is Gone tells the story of the scientists who pieced together the history of the Greenland ice sheet and, as a result, can now peer into its future. Paul Bierman, is himself one of these scientists, and he brings to his subject a deep affection and a wealth of experience. The result is at once fascinating, sobering, and eye-opening."

Elizabeth Kolbert

"A remarkable scientific detective story, told with panache—and carrying a very real and dangerous sting. Read it, and then do something about it."

Bill McKibben

★ 2024-05-17
A potent examination of how melting glaciers and rising ocean levels are already at crisis levels.

Except for the conclusion, Bierman, a professor of environmental science at the University of Vermont, has written not another global warming polemic but rather a compelling introduction to Greenland, glaciers, and how scientists drill down through ice to reveal the past. Greenland is the world’s largest island; 80% is covered by glaciers, so it’s sparsely inhabited, which only came to world attention during World War II and the Cold War. Aware that it was closer to the Soviet Union than Canada is, the U.S. War Department took an interest. Beginning in 1951, it built several bases in the far north. Mostly used for intelligence gathering and weather reporting, they also supported major research to understand the cryosphere, “the frozen portion of Earth.” Happy to accept military dollars, scientists undertook the difficult, six-year engineering feat of drilling down through a glacier to bring up a mile-long core of ice and then dirt that revealed Greenland’s history and made breakthrough discoveries about snow and ice mechanics, glaciers, and climate change. Having accomplished their purpose, the bases were abandoned by 1966, leaving behind immense deposits of frozen sewage, diesel oil, drilling chemicals, and radioactivity. Bierman delivers an expert account of the 50 years of research that followed in laboratories around the world; examining the core, scientists learned that within the last million years, the ice beneath the camps had melted without human involvement, and tundra plants had grown across Greenland. Having hinted at bad news, Bierman provides it in the final chapter, warning that the rising temperature is melting Greenland’s ice, which holds enough water to raise sea levels by 24 feet. At the same time, the warming ocean and atmosphere are producing the deranged weather and violent storms already in progress.

Frightening yet excellent popular science.

Kirkus Reviews