Cover -- THE WHITE PLANET -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- PART ONE THE WORLD OF ICE: PAST AND PRESENT -- Chapter 1 The Ice on Our Planet -- Snow and Ice: A Multifaceted World -- Mountain Glaciers and Ice Caps -- Polar Regions: The Omnipresence of the White Planet -- Greenland, Antarctica, and Ice Shelves -- Ice: An Agent and Indicator of Climate Change -- The White Planet and Sea Levels -- Chapter 2 From Exploration to Scientific Observation -- The Flow of Mountain Glaciers -- Mass Balance: The Health of a Glacier -- The Arctic Ocean in the Time of the Explorers -- The Arctic Ocean: Vulnerable Ice -- Greenland: An Island Inhabited for Millennia -- Greenland: An Increasingly Negative Mass Balance -- Antarctica: A Much More Recent Exploration -- Antarctica: A Long Uncertain Mass Balance -- Chapter 3 Ice through the Ages -- The Time of the Pioneers -- Ice of Long Ago -- Glaciations of the Quaternary and Astronomic Theory -- PART TWO POLAR ICE: AMAZING ARCHIVES -- Chapter 4 Reconstructing the Climates of the Past -- The Round of Isotopes -- Going Back in Time -- The Recent Period -- The Distant Past -- Paleoceanography -- Continental Archives -- Dating Oceanic and Continental Archives -- A Cornucopia of Results -- Chapter 5 Glacial Archives -- The Long Story of a Snowflake -- The Ice and Its Isotopes: A Paleothermometer -- Impurities with Multiple Sources -- Air Bubbles in the Ice: A Very Beautiful Story -- The Headaches of Dating -- Chapter 6 The Campaigns -- Camps Century and Byrd: The First Deep Ice Core Drillings -- Fifty Years Ago: The French on the Polar Ice -- The First Drilling at Dôme C: Success of the French Team -- Rapid Climate Variations: Initial Inklings -- Vostok: A Collaboration between French and Soviet Teams -- Europe and the United States: Two Drilling Operations in the Center of Greenland.

Europe Turns to Antarctica -- Vostok: More than 3,600 Meters of Ice -- Other Core Drilling in Antarctica -- The Glaciers of the Andes and the Himalaya -- A Return to Greenland -- The European EPICA Drilling: A Double Success beyond All Hopes -- Chapter 7 Vostok: The Cornucopia -- A Complete Glacial-Interglacial Cycle -- Climate and Greenhouse Effect Go Hand in Hand -- Much More Information -- A Huge Lake under the Ice -- Chapter 8 Dôme C: 800,000 Years and the Revolution of the Rhythm of Glaciations -- Ice Older than That at Vostok -- Inversion of the Magnetic Field -- Chapter 9 Rapid Climatic Variations -- The First Indications -- Increasingly Clear Indications -- A Connection with Ocean Circulation? -- Confirmation -- Rapid Events during a Warm Period? -- Initially Underestimated Changes in Temperature -- The Connection with the Ocean Henceforth Demonstrated -- Consequences on a Planetary Scale -- Chapter 10 The Last 10,000 Years: An Almost Stable Climate -- Volcanism and Solar Activity: Natural Climatic Forcings -- How Long Has Human Activity Been Changing the Composition of the Atmosphere? -- PART THREE THE WHITE PLANET TOMORROW -- Chapter 11 TheClimate and Greenhouse Gases -- The Greenhouse Effect: A Truly Beneficial Natural Phenomenon -- The Greenhouse Effect Due to Human Activity: A Slow Awareness -- How Did We Get to This Point? -- Chapter 12 Have Humans Already Changed the Climate? -- The Time of the Pioneers -- The Awareness -- The Establishment of the IPCC -- The Problem of Aerosols -- The Climate in the Last Millennium -- Warming Is a Certainty -- The Arguments of Skeptics -- The White Planet on the Front Lines of Global Warming -- Chapter 13 What Will the Climate Be in the Future? -- A True Upheaval if We Aren't Careful -- What Will Become of Our Glaciers? -- An Arctic Ocean without Ice? -- Surprises under the Frozen Ground.

A More Rapid and Higher Sea-Level Rise than Predicted -- The Halt of the Gulf Stream -- Chapter 14 A Warming with Multiple Consequences -- A True Upheaval on a Global Scale -- Mountain Regions -- Polar Regions: Multiple and Diverse Impacts -- The Political and Economic Stakes: Climate and Oil -- Chapter 15 What We Must Do -- Stabilizing the Greenhouse Effect: A True Challenge -- The Kyoto Protocol: A First Step -- The Bali Conference -- Can the Challenge Be Met? -- Copenhagen: Failure or Half-Success -- A Necessary Adaptation -- The "Grenelle de l'environnement" -- PART FOUR THE POLES AND THE PLANET -- Chapter 16 The Crucial Place of Research -- A Short History of the Polar Years -- The International Polar Year 2007-2009 -- Glacial Ice Coring: Ambitious Objectives -- The Microbiology of Ice and Subglacial Lakes: Life in an Extreme Environment -- Concordia: A Station Full of Promise -- Chapter 17 Humans and the Rise of Pollution -- The Story of Lead -- Other Heavy Metals, Including Copper -- Sulfates -- Radioactivity -- The Ozone Hole: An Emblematic Pollution -- The Anthropocene and Greenhouse Gases -- CONCLUSION: THE ANTHROPOCENE ERA -- NOTES -- SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX.