A hands-on, revealing guide to a career as a climate scientist written by acclaimed Outside magazine writer Kyle Dickman and based on the experiences of a preeminent researcher studying permafrost in the Arctic—essential reading for anyone considering a path to this timely profession.

Go behind the scenes and be mentored by the best in the business to find out what it’s really like, and what it really takes, to become a climate scientist. Accurate climate science is more important than ever before. As awareness grows of our changing climate, demand is increasing for people to study it—from universities who want to have the latest, cutting-edge research, militaries who are worried about national defense, and governments who need accurate data to enact policy reform. Climate scientists use both field research and complex algorithms on super computers to predict the climate of our ever-changing world.

Acclaimed Outside magazine editor Kyle Dickman shadows climate scientist Cathy Wilson and her team, who work in the farthest reaches of Alaska’s northern tundra and in the national research labs in Los Alamos, NM, to reveal how this dream job becomes a reality. Shadow top climate scientists to see how they measure snowfall, assess the thawing of the permafrost, and determine the water content of soil down to 1 mm accuracy. Learn how the growth of one shrub can affect a whole ecosystem and how models can predict the future of our fast-changing planet. Here is how the job is performed at the highest level.

Kyle Dickman is a contributing editor at Outside and a former member of the firefighting crew known as the Tahoe Hotshots. He spent five seasons fighting wildfires in California, and is the author of On the Burning Edge. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife.