BOULDER, Colo. – Climate science research often involves a little derring-do mixed in with a lot of tedium. Some scientists scramble up equatorial peaks to measure melting glaciers; others scour dry African lakebeds for sediment that reads like a talking science book.

For paleoclimatologist James White, adventures begin when a C-130 transport plane drops him and his team in the middle of Greenland's ice cap. In conditions that redefine the word "cold" for this native Tennessean, White drills through ancient ice to unlock clues to the Earth's past climate – and predict its future.