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Brave New Arctic: The Untold Story of the Melting North
An insider account of how scientists unraveled the mystery of the thawing Arctic
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 globe came together to find answers. In a sweeping tale of discovery spanning three decades, Serreze describes how puzzlement turned to alarm as researchers concluded that the Arctic is rapidly thawing due to climate change--and humans are to blame.
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 globe came together to find answers. In a sweeping tale of discovery spanning three decades, Serreze describes how puzzlement turned to alarm as researchers concluded that the Arctic is rapidly thawing due to climate change--and humans are to blame.
272 pages, Paperback
Published March 3, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
May 27, 2021
The start of the book shows us the young version of the author, happily getting into Arctic research by means of heading north to write papers on two small ice-caps. Later the author, now further in his career, learned that those ice-caps had almost vanished.
Scientists are generally cautious and may be prone to worry about what other scientists will say if they plump for one cause of receding ice. However, over the couple of decades we are shown, it seems extraordinary that scientists continually got together to compare notes on Arctic Ocean ice loss, river flow increasing, permafrost melting, shrubs developing on tundra, glaciers increasing their slide rate and terminal ice receding, biodiversity changing, new sailing passages opening, ice thinning from the underneath and warm air at the Pole, without deciding they could safely blame this on human-caused climate forcing.
Eventually they had to agree.
The North Pole will be free of summer ice possibly as early as 2030.
Notes p 235 - 249. Index p 251 - 255. I counted ten names which I could be sure were female, but most research papers just listed initials.
I recommend reading this in tandem with the book on South America's shrinking glaciers, Glaciers: The Politics of Ice.
Scientists are generally cautious and may be prone to worry about what other scientists will say if they plump for one cause of receding ice. However, over the couple of decades we are shown, it seems extraordinary that scientists continually got together to compare notes on Arctic Ocean ice loss, river flow increasing, permafrost melting, shrubs developing on tundra, glaciers increasing their slide rate and terminal ice receding, biodiversity changing, new sailing passages opening, ice thinning from the underneath and warm air at the Pole, without deciding they could safely blame this on human-caused climate forcing.
Eventually they had to agree.
The North Pole will be free of summer ice possibly as early as 2030.
Notes p 235 - 249. Index p 251 - 255. I counted ten names which I could be sure were female, but most research papers just listed initials.
I recommend reading this in tandem with the book on South America's shrinking glaciers, Glaciers: The Politics of Ice.
March 23, 2018
Sound, Thorough, Personable Scientific Reporting
I don't understand why popular science writing has to be hammed up. You get all of these Carl Sagan wannabes striking heroic celebrity scientist poses or gazing misty eyed at the cosmos. Meanwhile, book content is either dumbed down or so enpurpled as to be incomprehensible.
Well, that's not a problem here. Our author, Mark Serreze, entered the field as a grad student just when interest in the warming Arctic was gearing up. He took part in early field work and he grew in the profession just as the quality and depth and breadth of Arctic research grew. Serreze is modest and personable, and his book is intended to be an introduction to Arctic warming, a survey of historical developments and work to date, and a summary of what we know and don't know. It is episodic in parts, technical in other parts, and sometimes a little bit too professionally insiderish, but for the greater part the book offers a thorough and accessible history and explanation of what seems to be happening in the Arctic. It is neither over-simple nor hyper-technical and to me it fell right in that challenging just-enough-info sweet spot.
We start with Serreze's early experience measuring ice caps, and use that adventure to learn some basic technical stuff about reflection, albedo, and generally how and why ice fields and sea ice shrink and grow with the seasons. Along the way we are introduced to "temperature and atmospheric circulation, sea-ice extent, ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, snow cover, permafrost, glaciers and ice caps, the Greenland ice sheet, and river discharge". These introductions are crisp, clear, illustrated by actual data, and accompanied by brief explanations of the techniques and equipment that make measurements possible.
Everything starts to speed up by the 1980's, and certainly by the mid 90's, when researchers really started to look closely at the Arctic. From this point Serreze tends to follow developments chronologically rather than topic by topic. This approach actually works, since you get a real sense of Arctic research progressing along many fronts from year to year and you get a sense of how research is connected across different disciplines, and how results are built and compared and fine tuned over time. That approach also nicely sets up the final where-do-we-go-from-here chapters at the end of the book.
In short, this was good introductory climate science and good public science, with a mild but appropriate bit of personal history and insight mixed in. I liked that recipe and found this book an entertaining and rewarding read. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
I don't understand why popular science writing has to be hammed up. You get all of these Carl Sagan wannabes striking heroic celebrity scientist poses or gazing misty eyed at the cosmos. Meanwhile, book content is either dumbed down or so enpurpled as to be incomprehensible.
Well, that's not a problem here. Our author, Mark Serreze, entered the field as a grad student just when interest in the warming Arctic was gearing up. He took part in early field work and he grew in the profession just as the quality and depth and breadth of Arctic research grew. Serreze is modest and personable, and his book is intended to be an introduction to Arctic warming, a survey of historical developments and work to date, and a summary of what we know and don't know. It is episodic in parts, technical in other parts, and sometimes a little bit too professionally insiderish, but for the greater part the book offers a thorough and accessible history and explanation of what seems to be happening in the Arctic. It is neither over-simple nor hyper-technical and to me it fell right in that challenging just-enough-info sweet spot.
We start with Serreze's early experience measuring ice caps, and use that adventure to learn some basic technical stuff about reflection, albedo, and generally how and why ice fields and sea ice shrink and grow with the seasons. Along the way we are introduced to "temperature and atmospheric circulation, sea-ice extent, ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, snow cover, permafrost, glaciers and ice caps, the Greenland ice sheet, and river discharge". These introductions are crisp, clear, illustrated by actual data, and accompanied by brief explanations of the techniques and equipment that make measurements possible.
Everything starts to speed up by the 1980's, and certainly by the mid 90's, when researchers really started to look closely at the Arctic. From this point Serreze tends to follow developments chronologically rather than topic by topic. This approach actually works, since you get a real sense of Arctic research progressing along many fronts from year to year and you get a sense of how research is connected across different disciplines, and how results are built and compared and fine tuned over time. That approach also nicely sets up the final where-do-we-go-from-here chapters at the end of the book.
In short, this was good introductory climate science and good public science, with a mild but appropriate bit of personal history and insight mixed in. I liked that recipe and found this book an entertaining and rewarding read. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
May 18, 2021
The Arctic Ocean is likely to be ice-free during the summer by 2050.
Let that sink in. Hard book to read and absorb, and takes will power, but worth it.
Let that sink in. Hard book to read and absorb, and takes will power, but worth it.
March 14, 2021
Så nå vet jeg mer om forskningen rundt Arktis og klimaendringene. Mye jeg ikke har sjangs til å skjønne, mange forskernavn, forkortelser og fagbegreper, men i sum skinner budskapet gjennom den akademiske isen - først og fremst på grunn av det personlige språket, og dernest fordi dette er uhyre fascinerende. Hekta på Arktis blir jeg neppe, men boken gjør meg mer nysgjerrig.
June 9, 2018
Serreze's book takes the form of a very loose memoir, with stories of his time in the arctic as a young student to when he was quoted too much in the media in the years 2007+ as a prominent climate scientist trying to convince a skeptical public. It's peppered with personal anecdotes, but he also tries to bring the reader into the community of scientists, which is only half successful. He uses a lot of names, and it's easy to get lost in the forest of characters since he doesn't violate their privacy by telling stories about them. So lots of names, lots of acronyms, and it's hard to keep all of them straight. He's careful to explain a lot of things from the beginning to a lay audience, but in other places he quotes personal communication with his colleagues without explaining the terms they use (in one remarkable sentence, both calving tongues and basal lubrication go unexplained). So it's a little uneven, but if readers are willing to overlook some difficult technicalities, this is a good story. He's basically telling the story of how the scientific community became convinced that the arctic was warming, and therefore that global warming was a real phenomenon. He was a hold out but became convinced in 2003. He shares the stories of others -- what would have to happen to convince them? And then that happened, so they were convinced. It's the stories of changing minds, not the superior confidence of smug scientists trying to educate the stubborn public. It deals with the initial indications in the 1970s that the arctic might be on a long term cooling trend, and I've not seen the story told so well before. Very personable.
So I really liked it, but I'm not sure everyone will. But it's a good addition to the global warming nonfiction literature, and it's especially good for those who are inclined to trust scientists but aren't really clear on why the evidence for global warming is so convincing. This is just one piece of that story, but it's well told.
I got a free copy to review from Net Galley.
So I really liked it, but I'm not sure everyone will. But it's a good addition to the global warming nonfiction literature, and it's especially good for those who are inclined to trust scientists but aren't really clear on why the evidence for global warming is so convincing. This is just one piece of that story, but it's well told.
I got a free copy to review from Net Galley.
January 3, 2018
Sound, Thorough, Personable Scientific Reporting
I don't understand why popular science writing has to be hammed up. You get all of these Carl Sagan wannabes striking heroic celebrity scientist poses or gazing misty eyed at the cosmos. Meanwhile, book content is either dumbed down or so enpurpled as to be incomprehensible.
Well, that's not a problem here. Our author, Mark Serreze, entered the field as a grad student just when interest in the warming Arctic was gearing up. He took part in early field work and he grew in the profession just as the quality and depth and breadth of Arctic research grew. Serreze is modest and personable, and his book is intended to be an introduction to Arctic warming, a survey of historical developments and work to date, and a summary of what we know and don't know. It is episodic in parts, technical in other parts, and sometimes a little bit too professionally insiderish, but for the greater part the book offers a thorough and accessible history and explanation of what seems to be happening in the Arctic. It is neither over-simple nor hyper-technical and to me it fell right in that challenging just-enough-info sweet spot.
We start with Serreze's early experience measuring ice caps, and use that adventure to learn some basic technical stuff about reflection, albedo, and generally how and why ice fields and sea ice shrink and grow with the seasons. Along the way we are introduced to "temperature and atmospheric circulation, sea-ice extent, ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, snow cover, permafrost, glaciers and ice caps, the Greenland ice sheet, and river discharge". These introductions are crisp, clear, illustrated by actual data, and accompanied by brief explanations of the techniques and equipment that make measurements possible.
Everything starts to speed up by the 1980's, and certainly by the mid 90's, when researchers really started to look closely at the Arctic. From this point Serreze tends to follow developments chronologically rather than topic by topic. This approach actually works, since you get a real sense of Arctic research progressing along many fronts from year to year and you get a sense of how research is connected across different disciplines, and how results are built and compared and fine tuned over time. That approach also nicely sets up the final where-do-we-go-from-here chapters at the end of the book.
In short, this was good introductory climate science and good public science, with a mild but appropriate bit of personal history and insight mixed in. I liked that recipe and found this book an entertaining and rewarding read. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
I don't understand why popular science writing has to be hammed up. You get all of these Carl Sagan wannabes striking heroic celebrity scientist poses or gazing misty eyed at the cosmos. Meanwhile, book content is either dumbed down or so enpurpled as to be incomprehensible.
Well, that's not a problem here. Our author, Mark Serreze, entered the field as a grad student just when interest in the warming Arctic was gearing up. He took part in early field work and he grew in the profession just as the quality and depth and breadth of Arctic research grew. Serreze is modest and personable, and his book is intended to be an introduction to Arctic warming, a survey of historical developments and work to date, and a summary of what we know and don't know. It is episodic in parts, technical in other parts, and sometimes a little bit too professionally insiderish, but for the greater part the book offers a thorough and accessible history and explanation of what seems to be happening in the Arctic. It is neither over-simple nor hyper-technical and to me it fell right in that challenging just-enough-info sweet spot.
We start with Serreze's early experience measuring ice caps, and use that adventure to learn some basic technical stuff about reflection, albedo, and generally how and why ice fields and sea ice shrink and grow with the seasons. Along the way we are introduced to "temperature and atmospheric circulation, sea-ice extent, ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, snow cover, permafrost, glaciers and ice caps, the Greenland ice sheet, and river discharge". These introductions are crisp, clear, illustrated by actual data, and accompanied by brief explanations of the techniques and equipment that make measurements possible.
Everything starts to speed up by the 1980's, and certainly by the mid 90's, when researchers really started to look closely at the Arctic. From this point Serreze tends to follow developments chronologically rather than topic by topic. This approach actually works, since you get a real sense of Arctic research progressing along many fronts from year to year and you get a sense of how research is connected across different disciplines, and how results are built and compared and fine tuned over time. That approach also nicely sets up the final where-do-we-go-from-here chapters at the end of the book.
In short, this was good introductory climate science and good public science, with a mild but appropriate bit of personal history and insight mixed in. I liked that recipe and found this book an entertaining and rewarding read. (Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
August 3, 2021
I don’t think I was the intended audience for this book. It had way too many acronyms and not enough synthesis for someone like me. I’m a lay person with a solid background in science and a very fair understanding of climate change. I was looking for an Arctic expert who would really help me understand the details of the massive meltdown of the Arctic. But this book was mostly quite removed from taking a position; it took almost half the book to finally let us in on what we’ve already known now for quite a while: that the meeting of the Arctic is related to climate change.
I understand that the author was spending a lot of time showing his own genesis as a climate believer, from the starting point of being a very impartial scientists who was trying very hard to tease out lots of confusing data. To that end, he introduced lots of studies and programs that informed his own ambivalence about the causes of the Arctic meltdown. And for sure, it’s his book, so have at it and do what you want my friend.
But I felt that for someone who claims in the end to have accepted that his life’s purpose is helping people believe that Arctic melting is anthropogenic, he could do a lot less justifying his own slow arrival at the party and a lot more of helping people learn about the changes happening in the Arctic and what it may mean. I think he was in a unique position to serve up a really impactful book and instead gave us a pretty pedantic, specialized look at his own thought processes which just happen to land on the right side of the debate.
But hey, if you love acronyms and government science programs, you might like this book.
I understand that the author was spending a lot of time showing his own genesis as a climate believer, from the starting point of being a very impartial scientists who was trying very hard to tease out lots of confusing data. To that end, he introduced lots of studies and programs that informed his own ambivalence about the causes of the Arctic meltdown. And for sure, it’s his book, so have at it and do what you want my friend.
But I felt that for someone who claims in the end to have accepted that his life’s purpose is helping people believe that Arctic melting is anthropogenic, he could do a lot less justifying his own slow arrival at the party and a lot more of helping people learn about the changes happening in the Arctic and what it may mean. I think he was in a unique position to serve up a really impactful book and instead gave us a pretty pedantic, specialized look at his own thought processes which just happen to land on the right side of the debate.
But hey, if you love acronyms and government science programs, you might like this book.
November 28, 2018
An interesting read but one that needed quick skipping over too frequent acronyms and some less than clear details about winds and pressure areas. Having grown up in northern Canada, I was aware of the vegetation changes as I went North. This was back in the 1960s and already there seemed to be a climate change with vegetation types and lushness creeping North. Also warmer winters. Very limited observations, I know, but a welcome change as far as I was concerned. I thought the author did a good job in explaining the history of the scientific efforts and the complexity of the questions. I would like to have heard more about current conditions and the likely future. That discussion at the end of the book seemed a little brief and weak. All in all, a good book (3.5 stars).
June 29, 2019
Great review of the science if one already has some sort of background in various fields of earth sciences and wanted some more details and specifics. Not as helpful if someone doesn’t have that background. Insightful into the progression of scientific understanding, the process, how consensus was built, the challenges of representing the science work to the public. Still, something missing on this front. Almost there.
I think the author actually intended it to be a good resource for someone with little background knowledge in climate science, and there I think it misses the mark by a somewhat wide margin. Lots of highly technical terms and concepts that could have been organized and introduced better. So I deduct a bit for that, even though overall I personally found it quite good.
I think the author actually intended it to be a good resource for someone with little background knowledge in climate science, and there I think it misses the mark by a somewhat wide margin. Lots of highly technical terms and concepts that could have been organized and introduced better. So I deduct a bit for that, even though overall I personally found it quite good.
February 8, 2022
This book is very good in many ways, but my issue with it is that it doesn’t explain things very well when thorough explanation is needed. When I opened the book and saw a list of acronyms and their meanings, I had a feeling I was in for a rough time as far as that was concerned, and I was right. But not only the acronyms were an issue; the explanations of scientific findings in themselves feel too rushed for someone who has little familiarity with the subject (the target audience for this book). I suppose I cannot blame the author for the scientific community’s obsession with acronyms, but I can blame them for the latter issue.
Overall, this is a good book. It is just a little bit difficult to read at times.
Overall, this is a good book. It is just a little bit difficult to read at times.
March 31, 2019
I found the book informative. Even as a graduate student in Arctic climate I found myself a bit lost with the number of acronyms on some of the pages, which is perhaps impossible to avoid if you are talking about the politics of science funding. It wasn’t really clear what audience the book was for: it was mostly informal, and then there were chapters that I don’t think I’d have understood if I wasn’t already an atmospheric scientist. I enjoyed how much he drew from interviews with scientists whose papers I’ve read - I learned more about their careers and motivations than is possible from papers alone, which are super impersonal.
March 14, 2025
If you're going to the Arctic, READ THIS BOOK. It is written by a scientist who was in the field as a graduate student before climate warming was a thing even for scientists. He was also slow to be convinced it was a thing (by then he had lots of experience and was well respected in the Arctic scientific community). Yes, it's science, but Serreze is a terrific writer, so it is very readable and comprehensible to the non-scientist. It's a worthwhile read and I think it is a necessity before going to see any part of the Arctic for yourself as it will increase your appreciation and comprehension of what is happening there.
March 9, 2022
This is not for the layperson or someone who has not studied the mechanics of climate change in depth. It is a memoir of the author's dissertations, then committees and papers by him and other that are most pertinent to the evolving theories of climate scientists. The bickering, lack of funding and swipes by the author at various people detracted from my understanding of why it took so long for scientists to coalesce around the understanding that humans really are responsible for global warming--particularly in the Arctic.
June 16, 2019
Excellent book. Takes you through the science and exploration of the Arctic starting from the early 80s to get to where we are in a warmed up world.
The main highlights are how scientists figured out about the warming world and the causes for it. The author starts being on the fence about human causes but comes around once the natural variations turn around but the temperatures don’t.
Very fascinating read, and like all works on Climate breakdown, depressing and alarming too.
The main highlights are how scientists figured out about the warming world and the causes for it. The author starts being on the fence about human causes but comes around once the natural variations turn around but the temperatures don’t.
Very fascinating read, and like all works on Climate breakdown, depressing and alarming too.
August 2, 2018
A jargon filled history of the science behind the climate changes impacting the Arctic. Mostly based around the author's research on the subject it traces some of the dead ends and controversy around the growing consensus of humans impact on the environment. It didn't feel like the book offered much new insight if you are familiar with the topic.
September 20, 2018
A good compilation of the research that has been conducted on weather changes in the arctic. Of particular interest is how the concept of warming in the arctic has gone from being not entirely obvious about 15 years ago to a rate of acceleration so fast that scientists are having trouble developing forecasting models that can keep up with actual results.
November 16, 2018
The reviews for this book were quite positive. While I did learn more about the assumed causes of warming in the Arctic, I found the author's approach slightly less scientific than I would have hoped. The book does provide some good factual insights into specific changes in the arctic (glaciers receding) and is a fresh reminder of the challenges we face in fighting global warming.
September 12, 2018
Found it to be very enlightening. At times the acronyms got to be a little much.
I found the last chapter to be the most interesting. It really shines the light as to what is happening in the Arctic and how the shrinking ice is making a difference in the sea levels and climatic differences
I found the last chapter to be the most interesting. It really shines the light as to what is happening in the Arctic and how the shrinking ice is making a difference in the sea levels and climatic differences
December 15, 2018
I really wanted to like this book, but I did not. If you want to read something scientific and interesting about climate change I would suggest the chapter that was dedicated to the subject in SuperFreakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner.
April 26, 2019
I wanted to like this, but it felt too muddled and jargon heavy. Ironically the lack of clear narrative does convey the messiness of the science at work. Unfortunately the conclusion gets buried somewhat. There were some interesting field trip stories that would have been worth expanding on.
January 11, 2020
Mr. Serreze is the director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center and not only has a wealth of knowledge and compelling first-hand accounts noting the loss of glacier and sea ice in the Arctic, he puts this information together in an easy to follow way.
May 1, 2020
Lots of good scientific information on Arctic warming. Some paragraphs had to be reread to get a basic understanding of what he was saying. Too many acronyms and people's names to deal with to give a higher rating but again lots of info to digest.
July 24, 2020
A very smooth read, Brave New Arctic is an arresting account of the history of climate science in the Arctic. See my full review at https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2018...
Read
September 20, 2019Good review of arctic science and the history of our understanding of global warming.
September 16, 2021
Don’t give up on this book, keep reading. The last three chapters really bring it home. And, maybe read the Epilogue first so you know where the author is going with his message.
September 22, 2022
A well-documented account of the long - both personal and community -journey towards broad scientific acceptance of the Arctic ice (on land and at sea) rapidly disappearing.
Read
April 3, 2023not for the layperson!
February 3, 2025
The author Mark Serreze is an environmental scientist who has been studying the Arctic for decades. The book details how scientists discovered global warming. For many years, they were skeptical and thinking it was just caused by a natural climate cycle. Not until in 1990s (or 2003 for him) when more evidence shows it wasn’t caused by natural cycle, people started to realize the warming of the Arctic was caused by human activities.
March 12, 2021
A memoir of a scientist studying the arctic. The subject was interesting, but the presentation was left a bit loose. As the author describes himself as observationalist, it's interesting to hear him talk/write about the changes happening as purely observations and while he talks about the reasons behind the change, there is a lack of agenda or judgment, which I say as an observation of his observationalism and not environmentalism.
March 9, 2020
It was science and acronym heavy. I appreciated that he explained everything in laymen’s terms but it was still a lot. Well organized, well thought out and I liked that he didn’t instantly start screaming that climate change is real and the Arctic is melting. It’s like he takes your hand and leads you to the exhibits and by the end, he’s reached the conclusion that climate change is real but if you’re not there yet, at least you know more. (I was there before the book, to be clear)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews