The Ferocious Summer: Adelie Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica

by Meredith Hooper

Although it may seem barren, Antarctica is a vital — and increasingly threatened — part of the Earth's ecosystem. The Ferocious Summer is writer Meredith Hooper's firsthand account of the effects of climate change on this frozen continent. For one summer, Hooper lived and worked with scientists observing the summer population of Adélie penguins nesting at Palmer Station, the smallest of America's three Antarctic research bases. For Hooper, Palmer's penguins offered a way to understand the complex business of the Earth's changing climate. The Antarctic Peninsula was warming fast. Why? What were scientists doing to understand it? The daily lives of Palmer's few thousand Adélie penguins were becoming key evidence, and pieces of the climate change jigsaw began falling into place. Based on daily diaries, acute personal observations, and interviews with Antarctica's international community of researchers, this book is a fascinating and alarming report from the frontlines of global warming.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Animals, Environment, Nature

300 pages, Hardcover

First published February 20, 2008

About the author

Meredith Hooper uses the storybook form in Who Built the Pyramid? to make the latest research accessible for a young audience. Meredith Hooper is an historian by training and the author of many books, ranging in subject from Antarctica to aviation, from the history of water to the history of inventions.
Hooper, born in 1939, graduated in history from the University of Adelaide, then studied imperial history at Oxford.

Reviews

[Clare O'Beara · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a journalist researching for a book, the author spent a summer on the Antarctic coast with the science team which works to study everything that can possibly be studied, including penguin colonies. The small Adelie penguins had to brave leopard seals and foul weather as they strove to collect shrimps to feed their chicks.

As much a portrait of the people and living conditions at Palmer Station as anything, this is a fascinating read. We learn that people who go to shovel snow are paid more than researchers. How do you keep scientists sane and communicative miles from anywhere? By making them take turns to cook for everyone and requiring them to turn up for batik classes. On Sundays nobody had to cook and leftovers were used up, after which all the station's waste was fed through waste disposal and pumped into the ocean. By day the researchers collared unfortunate penguins and made them regurgitate the meals they had just collected, in order to study the shrimp colonies.

The Antarctic continent is technically a desert, since no rain falls there; snow falls in abundance. But this summer the snow was more like freezing rain. The wetness continually soaked the young fluffy penguin chicks, which didn't have waterproof feathers. This made it very hard for them to stay warm and their numbers diminished. An already endangered colony was shrinking visibly. The summation was that climate change is bringing warmer weather to the area; and added to fracturing ice shelves and glacier flow, made Meredith Hooper aware that all the scientists could do was study and record the changes.

[Corinne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book although towards the end I lost interest as I felt it was getting a bit repetitive and not as exciting as the first chunk of it... but I'm glad I read it, there's a lot of valuable information and well done to the team on the ship for their great work.

[Sandy K · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't disagree with the subject of the book, but I really disliked the writing style to the point where I had to force myself through it. Not a good time, although it's at least my fault as much as the books'.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed the content, but the writing was a little lyrical for my liking in this style of book.