Blue Ice

Alex Bernasconi is an award-winning nature, wildlife and landscape photographer. Born in 1968 in Milan, he has carved out a multi-faceted career as outdoors-man, sportsman, adventurer and traveller, his camera always with him to take up-close photographs of wildlife and its environment. His iconic images have appeared in magazines and books worldwide and he has won many prizes at prestigious international awards including the International Photography Awards (IPA), the Trierenberg Super Circuit, the PX3(Paris), the WPO Sony World Photography Awards, Graphis, and the Epson International Pano Awards. Wild Africa, his first photography book, was awarded the Gold Medal at the Independent Publisher Awards in New York in 2011. Prof. Julian Dowdeswell is a British glaciologist and the former director of the Scott Polar Research Institute. Having spent two and a half years working directly in the polar regions, he generated a wealth of research which earned him the Polar Medal in 1994 for ‘outstanding contributions to glacier geophysics’. His research focuses on the dynamics of large ice masses and their response to climate change. Other awards include the Founder’s Medal from the Royal Geographical Society (2008) and the the International Arctic Science Committee Medal (2014). He is an Emeritus Professor of physical geography at Cambridge University. Dr. Peter Clarkson MBE is an Emeritus Associate of the Scott Polar Research Institute. He graduated from Durham University in 1967 and joined the British Antarctic Survey as a geologist. He was awarded the Polar Medal in 1976 and received a PhD from Birmingham University in 1977. In 1989 he left the British Antarctic Survey to take up the position of Executive Secretary of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), based in the Scott Polar Research Institute. He has now retired and takes occasional Antarctic refresher courses on cruise ships to the Antarctic Peninsula when he lectures on a variety of Antarctic subjects.