Book Reviewed: The Hidden Life of Ice: Dispatches from a Disappearing World by Marco Tedesco and Alberto Flores d'Arcais

The planet in transition This is a personal reflection of the arctic explorer Marco Tedesco and his tribute to Greenland, an inspiring place that is affected by the environment. This is not so much about the impact of the climate but an exploration of the beauty of Greenland formed largely by ice. Greenland is a vista of whiteness interrupted only by scattered ponds of azure-colored melt water. 90 percent of the land is covered by ice sheet that is the largest outside Antarctica. Some of the green color is due to the large number of icebergs that are calved as the result of glacier retreat and ice cap melting. The bottom of the ice sheet was formed 130,000 years ago, before the start of the last ice age. In places like Canada, Scandinavia, New England, and the upper Midwest, the ice melted away at about 10,000 years ago. In Greenland, it remained and in addition, thousands of years of snowfalls, year after year, never melting in the summer, becoming buried under yet more layers of snow. The moulin, the technical name for the hole in the ice through which the lake has vanished is another geological phenomenon in this part of the world. Underneath ice sheets there are numerous highly efficient drainage system that empties into the sea and raises sea levels. The water in the underground tunnels flows and change direction and size constantly. Cryoconite holes are another interesting feature of ice sheets that have microbial oases within the extreme environment of a glacier's surface ice. These holes form when sediment is blown onto the ice and is heated by solar energy, causing it to melt into the glacier's surface. This has micro animals like tardigrades, the water bears or moss piglets. Their genome contains more extraneous DNA than any other animal species known. To put it simply, instead of inheriting its' genes from its ancestors, part of the tardigrade's genetic makeup may come from plants, bacteria, and fungi!. There is also a different kind of life that depends on a process known as bacterial chemosynthesis. Unlike photosynthesis, it exploits the energy generated in chemical reactions to produce organic substances. These creatures are completely autonomous and self-sufficient, living their peaceful existence in complete isolation. The environmental factors in these landscapes of Arctic and Antarctic territories are considered as the closest to what life would be like on other planets like Mars, and icy moons like Europa, a satellite of Jupiter. The author presents an interesting description of how sea levels rise differently in different parts of this planet when Greenland ice melts. The author wrote a similar book about Greenland in 2022 entitled “Ice: Tales from a Disappearing World,” and a related review article in Guardian Newspaper in 2020. This is a short book of 153 pages which read flawlessly.