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"While mainstream science has focused on polar ice to find clues about climate change, Lonnie Thompson has been risking his career and life on the highest and most remote ice caps along the equator. In the process he has changed the science of climatology." "Scientist and expert climber Mark Bowen joined Thompson's crew on several expeditions, including an eye-opening ascent in East Africa that revealed why the snows of Kilimanjaro will be gone in fifteen years. Bowen also includes an account of the dangerous Huascaran ascent where Thompson's discovery of an unknown type of glacial ice revealed how pieces of the global climate puzzle fit together. Bowen also takes us deep inside retreating glaciers from China and the Tibetan Plateau across South America's Andes and to Africa."

"Thin Ice explains what Thompson's hard-won data tell us about climate systems that have long perplexed the scientific community. Even more important, we learn what the equatorial ice reveals about global warming and the earth's probable future."--Jacket.

I: The Sajama expedition

The mountain God

An island in the sky

II: Early days

Where next?

Beginnings

A decade on Quelccaya

III: The warming sets in

First signs

The great experiment

Temperature follows suit

China opens up

IV: The essence of life

A city by a lake

The seesaw

V: More pieces for the puzzle

Casting about

From Tibet ...

... to Peru

Altering the course of thinking

Pushing back the bar

Solving the mercer problem

Endurance and tragedy on Dasuopu

VI: Kilimanjaro

Scratching the surface

Drilling deeper

The story in the snows.

Upper atmosphere > Observations.

Climatic changes > Research.

Climatology > Research.

Climatic changes > Research.

Climatology > Research.

Tropics > Climate > Research.