The pulse of Jacquet’s film is Lorius’ unwavering thirst for knowledge. Lorius came of age in the post-war science boom as Antarctica transformed from an icy desert wilderness to be conquered, to a site of scientific interest to be understood. The spirit of adventure among this first cohort of scientists however, was no less alive than their pioneering predecessors. Lorius weathered 200km/h winds and a cabin temperature of -18 degrees celsius for a year on his first trip to Antarctica where he began research on snow crystals, discovering that the ratio of light and heavy hydrogen atoms in each corresponded to air temperature on a given day.

Lorius’ major scientific achievement on greenhouse gases followed on from his work on crystals, though the actual breakthrough was more accident than carefully executed experiment; on adding ancient ice to a glass of whisky during one of his many Antarctic expeditions, Lorius speculated that these bubbles could be studied for their gas content. Drilling deep down into the ice could by extension liberate these perfectly preserved fossils of air and shed light on the relationship between temperature change and levels of carbon dioxide. That global warming is something of a banal – if deeply alarming – scientific fact today is only through the visionary work of people such as Lorius whose sophisticated research was in fact a combined effort of French researchers and American logistics operators at a Soviet drilling station – proof that petty nationalist posturing is no match for global mindedness when it comes to planetary matters.