This took some digging through my hardcopy, but I did find it, in the beginning of the section comprised of Estraven’s notes. He speaks of the volcanoes creating a greenhouse effect and driving the retreat of the ice, visible before them in the form of a withdrawing glacier. But it’s framed in a more long-term way than I had remembered. It was also quite a haunting passage to read from our seat in 2020, as they speak of average temperature rise and how it is all just a theory no one can prove, “The Snow of Ignorance yet untrodden” — would that it were better trod fifty years ago or now!

In any case, I think we may have talked me into yet another reread of Left Hand. The whole section that passes over the ice to Karhide is so stunning.