Arctic expert Richard Sale has clearly chosen his home with icy inaccessibility high on his list of priorities. The first time I tried to visit, the entire village of Coberley, high in the Cotswolds, was entirely cut off by very deep snow.

Access wasn't too much easier the following week (although I hold my hands up to the dodgy map-reading that forced me into making a three-point turn in thick snow at the end of a precariously icy lane).

But for a man who's used to striding purposefully across the Arctic tundra, Richard's Gloucestershire eyrie must seem positively urban.

His latest work – an enormous tome, which aims to offer an all-encompassing guide to the Arctic – is currently causing shelves to buckle in all good bookshops.

Lavishly illustrated and exhaustively written, The Arctic: The Complete Story, has been a labour of love for Richard, who has made the frosty landscape surrounding the North Pole a clear specialism, as well as something of a second home.

"I've spent weeks and weeks travelling around northern Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia, as well as out on the actual sea ice," Richard says, as he carries a couple of cups of steaming Earl Grey into his living room.

"It all started out as a hobby," he says. "I first went to Iceland 20 years ago and loved it so much I kept heading north every time I could have a holiday – places like Greenland and the Norwegian island of Svalbad just fascinated me. I've always been a birdwatcher, and the kind of wildlife you can see has always been so rich up there."

It's a long way from his former life as a physicist – conducting research in Switzer- land for a time, before working in the UK energy industry.

"My PhD was in physics, but I took early retirement back in the 1990s – when I was still in my late 40s – and decided to work on my real passion: Arctic wildlife."

He penned To The Ends of the Earth, a history of Polar exploration, which was named the 2003 UK Outdoor Writers' Guild Best Book on an Outdoor Theme.

"I then concentrated on a specialist ornithology book on a bird called the Gyrfalcon – which is a remarkable Arctic bird of prey. I wrote it together with a Russian friend, Eugene Popatove.

"We did it because we loved the bird so much, but were astonished by its success – especially when it was named US Wildlife Society book of the year in 2006. For us, that was like winning the Nobel Prize."

The success of the book led to Richard being commissioned to produce a glossy hardback, The Complete Guide to Arctic Wildlife, which also proved to be a great success in bookshops' natural history departments around the world.

"Given my background as a physicist, I'd wanted to include chapters on the Northern Lights, and talk about the geology," Richard explains. "But the publishers of that book were keen for us to concentrate solely on the wildlife – they wanted a field guide rather than a coffee- table book.

"So when that one was finished I started asking around different publishing houses, to see if any would be interested in publishing an all-encompassing, complete guide to the Arctic – taking in everything from local populations' history and cultures, to wildlife, geology, politics – everything you can think of.

"I was delighted when Frances Lincoln agreed to produce the book, and I got to work straightaway. It took 15 months to write. When you consider that it's a 320,000-word book, that's not bad going.

"I had a lot of the research done, of course," he adds. "It accumulates with each book you do, but I did have to make a few journeys out around the Arctic to get some extra pictures, which I knew we'd be missing."

But not everything quite went according to plan. "I went out to Churchill, in Canada, to try to photograph beluga whales," he says. "I was leaning over the front of the hire boat, trying to take pictures down into the water, when the driver decided to turn the outboard engine on. I lost my balance, and in the tumble I managed to fracture my thumb.

"By the time we'd got back to the harbour my whole hand was swollen up like a balloon. But I couldn't afford to abandon my trip, so I carried on going – struggling to take pictures in the Arctic with just one hand. But that's all part of the wear and tear of working up there.

"When you love the place as much as I do, you're happy to take those kinds of risks."

But Richard believes his beloved Arctic is disappearing.

"The effects of climate change are extremely noticeable – especially when you travel up there regularly," he says.

"I kept finding it difficult to photograph wildlife, because climate change was altering their behavioural patterns. For example, one trip to Greenland to see the migrating geese was a real waste of time because we got there to find the geese had already left – far earlier than they usually would.

"Then there are creatures like the lemmings in Norway, which are finding it increasingly difficult to survive as the snow melts – because they need the insulation the snow provides.

"With the lemmings disappearing, the snowy owls suffer, because they are losing their prey. This shows how delicate the ecosystem is in the Arctic – every change has a drastic knock-on effect."

The most emotive of all climate-change scenarios, however, is the plight of the polar bear.

"As the ice melts, they literally have nowhere to go," he says. "The final picture caption in the book makes the point quite strongly – in it, I ask the question whether the polar bears might become extinct within the lifetime of the reader. That rather hammers it home, I think."

The Arctic: The Complete Story has hardly made it to bookshops, but Richard is already busy on not just one, but two new books. "I'm working on a book about snowy owls," he says. "And I've also just finished writing a book called The Scramble for the Arctic, in which I look at the potential for future political turmoil over the oil and gas fields that lie beneath the Arctic ice.

"The Canadians are already positioning fighter jets within the Arctic Circle, and the Russians have made a number of aggressive moves northwards.

"All the countries surrounding the Arctic know that there could potentially be great wealth buried beneath the ice, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the scramble for that wealth could lead to a major war in the north in the coming years."

The Arctic: The Complete Story, is available now, published by Frances Lincoln Limited, priced £45.

Turn to page 23 to read West Country Life's review of the book.