Thin Ice: Unlocking the Secrets of Climate in the World's Highest Mountains

On a scientific level, I probably haven't understood one tenth of the facts and ramifications presented in this book - and that is certainly not Mr Bowen's fault. But on an emotional level, it still hammers home its message more than anything i have heard about climate hange - maily because it exemplifies a theoretic paradigm. Anyone understands retreating ice, and glaciers are, unfortunately, the place to be to witness it.
A bit of an anticlimax near the end, though, when Bowen deplores the 'unaesthetic' effect of global warming for mountaineers in the final pages more than delineating the catastrophic consequences for the whole world.

This is about 5 books in one - the story of the career of scientist Lonnie Thompson, the history of the discovery of global warming, a mountaineering book, anthropoligical study of the rise and fall of civilizations due to climate, and a history of the political debates. Most entertaining book on global warming I've read.