Notes From the Arctic Circle: Exclusive excerpts from Sara Wheeler's new book, The Magnetic North. (1) - By Sara Wheeler - Slate Magazine

Either way, the survival of civilization as we know it hangs on what happens in the Arctic. Anxiety, panic, concern, and skepticism have inflamed the public imagination. As we powered through the ice, I asked the captain what he thought about the Big Melt. He looked out over the splitting white, took a deep drag on his Troika cigarette, and yelled over the racket of six engines, "I not know."

Scientists, for the most part, don't know either. I spent many weeks hunched over holes in the Greenland ice sheet or hauling samples from the slimy bottom of an Alaskan lake. As far as possible, I tried to enter the minds of individual researchers to see what made them creative. My own mind was open. History reveals many periods of cooling and warming, and I learned that the science is more dramatic than media headlines indicate, as well as a million times more complicated, nuanced, and uncertain. In many respects, we do not know how ecosystems will respond to climate change.