SNO

A beautiful and profound natural history of snow from the bestselling award winning Swedish environmentalist Sverker Sörlin exploring the cultural scientific artistic and existential significance of what is due to climate change fast becoming a vanishing fact of nature Selected as one of the Financial Times Best Books on the Environment Arresting facts and extraordinary insights Sverker Sörlin is a scholar and writer at the height of his creative powers Klaus Dodds Professor of Geopolitics Royal Holloway University of LondonSnow A single word for an infinite variety of water formulations frozen in air The study of snow is physics chemistry meteorology anthropology geography poetry and art It is hope annually renewed And it is history too Earth saw its first snowfall 2 4 billion years ago The world s oldest skis made by hand five thousand four hundred years old pre date the pyramids of ancient Egypt To humanity snow has variously been an ally and an adversary an inspiration to countless artists and a place of breathtaking tragedy and survival But it s always been there And now it is melting In 1927 the snow was already more than nine metres deep on Japan s Mount Ibuki when a remarkable 230cm fell in 24 hours bringing about the gr