San Antonio College Library

In the 1990s, researchers in the Arctic noticed that floating summer sea ice had begun receding. This was accompanied by shifts in ocean circulation and unexpected changes in weather patterns throughout the world. The Arctic's perennially frozen ground, known as permafrost, was warming, and treeless tundra was being overtaken by shrubs. What was going on? Brave New Arctic is Mark Serreze's riveting firsthand account of how scientists from around the...

Cold and isolated, yet home to some 4 million people; harsh and unyielding, yet disintegrating with every passing year, the Arctic defies definition. In the modern mind it represents the quintessentially timeless; its landscape imagined both as a realm of crystalline purity and as a frozen kingdom of dread and death. A unique ecosystem that hosts such beloved creatures as the polar bear and the narwhal and serves as the homeland for some of the world's...

"Climate change, one of the drivers of global change, is controversial in political circles, but recognized in scientific ones as being of central importance today for the United States and the world. In The Big Thaw, the editors bring together experts, advocates, and academic professionals who address the serious issue of how climate change in the circumpolar Arctic is affecting and will continue to affect environments, cultures, societies, and economies...

David Attenborough journeys to both polar regions to investigate what rising temperatures will mean for the people and wildlife that live there, and for the rest of the planet. David starts out at the North Pole, standing on sea ice several metres thick, but which scientists predict could be open ocean within the next few decades. The Arctic has been warming at twice the global average, and David heads out with a Norwegian team to see what this means...

Examines Inuit history and culture and the experiences of new arrivals in the Arctic. In addition, the effect that climate change is having on the Arctic is explored.