Riffenburgh earned his doctorate degree at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. He has written or edited numerous books on polar exploration, including "The Myth of the Explorer", a scholarly examination of the relationship of the popular press with exploration; "Shackleton's Forgotten Expedition", the story of Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition, which almost attained both the South Pole and the South Magnetic Pole; and "Racing with Death", the story of Douglas Mawson's Antarctic expeditions. He was the editor of the "Encyclopedia of the Antarctic", a two-volume work that is the most comprehensive reference work ever produced about the Antarctic.