Longlisted for the Wainwright PrizeShortlisted for the Richard Jeffries AwardThe story of one womans passion for glaciersAs one of the worlds leading glaciologists Professor Jemma Wadham has devoted her career to the glaciers that cover onetenth of the Earths land surface. Today however these ice rivers are in peril. High up in the Alps Andes and Himalaya onceindomitable glaciers are retreating in Antarctica meanwhile thinning ice sheets are releasing meltwater to sensitive marine foodwebs and may be unlocking vast quantities of methane stored deep beneath them. The potential consequences for humanity are almost unfathomable.Jemmas first encounter with a glacier as a student sparked her love of these icy landscapes. There is nowhere on Earth she feels more alive. Whether abseiling down crevasses skidooing across frozen fjords exploring ice caverns or dodging polar bears for a glaciologist its all in a days work.Prompted by an illness that took her to the brink of death and back in Ice Rivers Jemma recalls twentyfive years of expeditions around the globe revealing why the glaciers mean so much to her and what they should mean to us. As she guides us from the Alps to the Andes the importance of the ice to crucial ecosystems and human livelihoods becomes clear our lives are entwined with these coldest places on the planet. This is a memoir like no other an eyewitness account by a top scientist at the frontline of the climate crisis and an impassioned love letter to the glaciers that are her obsession.