When science writer and Puget Sound resident Eric Scigliano was commissioned to write a book about climate change, he was excited to have the opportunity to travel to Alaska. His research would take him to a remote spot on the west coast where the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers flow into the Bering Sea, which is one of the largest deltas in the world, about the size of Louisiana.
“I had already visited remote corners of Alaska and was looking forward to this new adventure,” Scigliano said recently. “Unfortunately, not long before my trip was scheduled, I broke my ankle and had to cancel. There was no way I was going to be able to walk on the ‘vegetative trampoline’ that makes up that part of the world.”
Despite the change of plans, Scigliano was able to continue his research, which included interviewing the scientists and students who are part of the Polaris Project. This scientific team, based at Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Mass., spend time each year on-site in Alaska (before coronavirus halted travel), trying to determine how increased human activity is sending more carbon into the atmosphere and how that might affect the earth’s climate.
Scigliano’s new book, The Big Thaw: Ancient Carbon, Modern Science, and a Race to Save the World, recently won the 2020 Washington State Book Award for general nonfiction. Published by Braided River, Scigliano’s text, along with photos of the stunning landscape, wildlife and indigenous peoples of the area taken by award-winning natural history photographer Chris Linder, interlace the scientific complexities of the story while keeping it focused on its human impact.
Scigliano was surprised by the amount of attention the book has garnered. In addition to the Washington State Book Award, it also received three national awards for environmental writing. Calling it a “modest book” at about 20,000 words, Scigliano said it’s one of the shortest books he’s ever written.
In The Big Thaw, Scigliano introduces readers to the Woods Hole scientific team who have been studying the permafrost and what lies beneath since 2002. This vast storehouse of ancient carbon, more than four times the amount found in all of the earth’s forests, is releasing carbon dioxide and methane as it thaws, which in turn is altering the earth’s climate. The Polaris Project scientists and students have braved swarms of mosquitoes, eluded quicksand, and dealt with extreme temperatures to better understand what is going on and what we need to do to preserve the earth’s delicate carbon balance.
Scigliano has been reporting on science and the environment for more than 30 years. Raised in the Midwest, he arrived in Seattle in the 1970s when it was still a rough-and-tumble industrial town before it became the darling of the tech industry. He was a science writer at the University of Washington and a staff writer and editor at several newspapers and magazines. His work has appeared in National Geographic, Discover, Harper’s, and the New York Times, among other publications.
He is the author or co-author of some half-dozen books, including one that explores the relationship between elephants and humans, and another that looks at ocean currents and the objects that they carry. His book on artist and sculptor Michelangelo, called Michelangelo’s Mountain, was a finalist for the Washington Book Award in 2005. The topic was a natural for Scigliano because his family comes from that region in Italy.
“My grandmother would show me an old black-and-white photo of the Apuan Alps, near Carrara, and say: this is where I am from,” he said. “Her father was a sculptor and marble carver. These are the kinds of memories that stay with you.”
As he researched Michelangelo and his art, Scigliano made several visits to Carrara, spending up to three months at a time. “Carrara is both an industrial city and an art town with an unbelievably rich history,” he said. “I was attracted by the sheer spectacle of it and also its very human dimension. My cousins still work in the marble industry there and they know everybody in town.”
Scigliano realized that permafrost and climate change might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he argues they should be. “Permafrost is not glamorous stuff,” he said, “but it’s important because it covers so much of the world. It’s about one-fourth of the land surface in the northern hemisphere. The Arctic was long thought to be stable but not anymore. It is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet.”
Last year, the temperature in Northern Siberia broke 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the first time. As the soil thaws, it bends and buckles, causing damage to houses and riverbanks. The Polaris Project team discovered that the permafrost layer is starting to release its estimated 1,200 to 1,850 billion metric tons of stored carbon into the atmosphere — roughly twice the amount of carbon already there.
Although these statistics are serious, “we wanted the book to make the climate crisis tangible and at the same time engender a sense of possibilities, not despair,” said Helen Cherullo, publisher of Braided River. “It was a daunting task but Eric was the ideal writer to describe the scientific complexities of this story in clear terms, and weave it together with compelling and hopeful human stories.”
Inspirational as well as down-to-earth, The Big Thaw captures the spirit of this amazing wilderness and the dedicated scientists who are racing against the clock to better understand its impact on our world.
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