In the author’s note, Glover writes that “while the basal and especially surface melting occurring in the Ross Ice Shelf has been amplified and accelerated in my story, the extreme temperature and weather events that are now regularly smashing records in Antarctica and the Arctic are very – frighteningly – real”. This is a minor adjustment – a forecast, as it were – with seismic ramifications for Missy. For me, at least, this literary conceit unfolds with a climactic scene in Antarctica, hinged on this “amplified and accelerated” melting, that feels overblown and defiant of the book’s otherwise careful hand.

The lofty, heroic adventures of Scott and co are remembered in part as great tragedies of naïve faith in human progress — an erstwhile imperialist desire to map and conquer the world. Glover, however, assures us that Scott’s expedition should be remembered for more than vanity, machismo and far-reaching ambition. The untold secret of their mission lies in something more technical — the weather data.

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Glover considers the weather records of Scott’s Antarctic quest in the 1910s to be vital for our understanding of global weather trends today.

His book is less of a nostalgic Joseph Conrad adventure story and more of a brainiac endeavour to illuminate developments in meteorology in the past century. By emphasising the enduring value of scientific discovery, Glover eschews the antiquated narrative of adventurers mapping the globe, sticking flags in the earth’s extremities, and often dying along the way for empire and glory.

When I first read Thaw, I was bothered by the repetitive sensory descriptions that dominate Glover’s retelling of Scott’s journey to Antarctica. Frostbite, shivers, howling winds, cracked lips and metaphors for being icy and cold are repeated ad nauseum. But on a reread, examining the deeper intentions and mechanisms of the work, I appreciated the effect. The cold is relentless, after all, and unforgiving.

And Glover has mirrored this experience in the prose style. Subjecting the reader to the drudgery of mirror-image days brings to light suffering and displaces rosy myths of man vs nature. In that equation, Glover reminds us, nature usually wins.

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