This is the first, full-length English language biography of Swedish astronomer and Earth science pioneer Professor Anders Celsius. It reveals what his extraordinary but tragically short life and career can teach us about our today and humanity's tomorrow.

The book tells how Celsius' study, travels and relationships at the peak of the European Enlightenment helped him to unlock fundamental mysteries of the natural world, and how his life offers vital lessons for now and the future. He was a mercurial thinker who ran out of time, but his discoveries, philosophy and personality still point a hopeful way forward.

Best remembered for inventing the Centigrade scale, Celsius' name now frames humanity's future in the international targets to limit average global temperature increases to no more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. As our world faces this life-or-death struggle, there's much we can learn from Celsius. If we will listen.