Polar Ice Meltdown

Earth's Arctic ice is disappearing! But why are ice caps, glaciers, and icebergs melting, and how does it impact the planet? In this nonfiction graphic novel, Max Axiom and the Society of Super Scientists are on a mission to find out! Using their superpowers and super-smarts, the team will break down this complex environmental issue into an exciting, fact-filled adventure so young readers can learn about the causes and effects of climate change and discover steps we can all take to protect our polar regions and fight global warming.

"Presents the science behind world climate changes, including causes and possible solutions"--Provided by publisher.

We hear about pieces of ice the size of continents breaking off of Antarctica, rapidly melting glaciers in the Himalayas, and ice sheets in the Arctic crumbling to the sea, but does it really matter? Will melting glaciers change our lives? Absolutely.The ice ages and the interglacial periods like we live in now are built and destroyed by glaciers. Glaciers hold three quarters of our freshwater, yet we don't have laws to protection them from climate change. Melting glaciers raise the seas, alter global ecosystems, warm our climate and bring onfloods that swamp millions of acres of land destroying coastal ecosystems and leaving hundreds of millions homeless. Healthy glaciers help keep our planet cool by reflecting solar heat away from the Earth and provide critical freshwater supply to billions that live within their meltwater runoffbasins. But melting glaciers alter ocean temperature, warm the atmosphere and cause havoc to the ocean currents and to the global jet stream, causing inclement weather, prolonged and recurrent droughts, heavy rains and intense, frequent and unpredictable storms. As glaciers melt away, their criticalenvironmental functions and services will wither. And as climate change warms their core, their weakening internal structure will cause a growing number of glacier tsunamis that can send deadly massive ice blocks, rocks, earth and billions of liters of water rushing down mountain valleys that takeout anything in their path. It has happened before in the Himalayas, in the Central Andes, in the Rockies and Western Cascades, and in the European Alps and it will happen again. As glaciers melt so do the vast swaths of permafrost environments that thrive in their surroundings, where thawingmillenary terrain rich in ice but also in methane gas captured hundreds of thousands of years ago, is now released into the atmosphere intensifying climate change even further.In his new book Meltdown, Jorge Daniel Taillant takes readers deeper into the cryosphere and connects the dots between climate change, glacier melt and the impacts that receding glacier ice brings to livability on Earth, to our environments and to our neighborhoods. He walks us through thelittle-known realm of the periglacial environment, a world where invisible subsurface rock glaciers with solid ice cores that will outlive exposed glaciers in our warming climate, but will they suffice to maintain our cryosphere and climate ecology in balance? In two closing chapters Taillant looksat actions that can help stop climate change and save glaciers and also contrasts how society, politics and our leaders have responded to address the COVID-19 pandemic and yet largely failed to address the even larger looming and escalating crisis of climate change.Meltdown is about glaciers and their unfolding demise during one of the most critical moments of our climate crisis. We may still be in time to save the cryosphere, if we can reconsider glaciers in a whole new light and understand the critical role they play in our own sustainability and if we canawaken to see how through glacier melt, geological ages are changing right before our eyes.

Earth's Arctic ice is disappearing! But why are ice caps, glaciers, and icebergs melting, and how does it impact the planet? In this nonfiction graphic novel, Max Axiom and the Society of Super Scientists are on a mission to find out! Using their superpowers and super-smarts, the team will break down this complex environmental issue into an exciting, fact-filled adventure so young readers can learn about the causes and effects of climate change and discover steps we can all take to protect our polar regions and fight global warming.

"Meltdown: Terror at the Top of the World" tells the riveting story of seven American hikers who went on a wilderness adventure into Canada's Arctic tundra-polar bear country-and came back with a tale of terror.Based on interviews with all seven hikers as well as many of the world's experts on polar bears and sea ice, "Meltdown" tells the story of the hikers' harrowing encounter with a polar bear; the plight of the polar bear in general, facing starvation and extinction as the sea ice melts and its habitat disappears; and of the Arctic meltdown, an advanced symptom of man-made climate change that is touching everyone, everywhere. Praise for Meltdown:"As deftly paced and riveting as it is a clear call for dramatic action on climate change."- Porter Shreve, San Francisco Chronicle"Part harrowing survival story, part science lesson, "Meltdown: Terror at the Top of the World" is 100% the most gripping e-book single of 2014."- Howard Polskin, Thin Reads

Ben and Zoe, WILD's top operatives, are sent to Alaska to find an orphaned polar bear cub. Will Ben and Zoe be able to find the lost cub in time?

Describes how global warming is affecting the planet.

Join Max Axiom and the Society of Super Scientists as they use their superpowers and super-smarts to investigate today's most urgent environmental and scientific issues. Through the dynamic graphic novel format, these accessible introductions break down complex topics into exciting, fact-filled STEM adventures. With Max and his team leading the way, young readers will learn about current challenges facing the world and discover actions to solve them.