The Ferocious Summer is primarily the story of the time that Meredith Hooper spent at Palmer Station, a small U.S. Antarctic facility on Anvers Island. This was during the summer of 2001-02, when extreme weather conditions on the Northern Antarctic Peninsula and the low reproductive success of the Adélie penguins made it clear that something was wrong.

Adelaide-born Hooper has lived in the U.K. since she went to Oxford for postgraduate work in history. She has written on many subjects for children and adults, but during the last 15 years has increasingly specialised in writing about Antarctica, and has had several coveted stints there as a visiting writer, most recently during 'the ferocious summer', the subject of the book. It's clear that she's passionate about the beautiful but dangerous landscape and the cold-adapted wildlife of Antarctica, and even the challenges of living in a tiny, isolated community.

In this book, Hooper concentrates on 'the Birders': a small, dedicated group of researchers who work with the bird life around Palmer, doggedly collecting statistics at the same times and places year after year to build up a database of information about the numbers of breeding pairs, eggs and chicks, their sizes and weights, and so on. The team concentrates on Adélie penguins (the speciality of the team leader, Bill Fraser) and giant petrels (Donna Patterson's speciality), but also looks at chinstrap penguins, brown skuas and other seabird species.

The Adélie penguins – considered an 'indicator species' for climate change – were hit by problem after problem during the summer of 2001-02, the warmest on record for the Antarctic Peninsula. Palmer had the heaviest snowfall and rainfall on record, the Larsen B ice shelf collapsed, and volume of krill was low. As a result of global warming, the penguins had the poorest reproductive success rate ever measured at Palmer. Only half the usual number of penguins turned up to breed, and those breeding pairs laid fewer eggs and suffered severe losses through the season.