Episode 2 Arctic Live


Episode 2

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It's minus 13, the winds are gusting up to 80 kilometers and hour. There

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is a polar bear hiding in the bush just over my shoulder. You could

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only be watching one thing - this is Arctic Live.

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Welcome to the magnificent Arctic tundra, just outside the Canadian

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town of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay. We are here at a truly

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dynamic time of year. It's the onset of winter, before it really takes

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its grip and the Bay freezes over. Now, there is one animal in

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particular that is impatient for that to happen. It is of course the

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region's polar bears. Throughout the summer they have been scattered out

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here in the tundra, now they are gathering, literally, they are all

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around us. Waiting for that ice to form, waiting for the moment that

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they can hunt for the first time in months. Now, last night you

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contacted us throughout the show using the #ArcticLive. Or you

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e-mailed us at [email protected]. Now, I have a little thing to sort

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out with some of you sceptics out there. You thought we weren't live

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because it's daylight. It's a five hour time difference between here

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and the UK. It's 3.00pm, just after, sunset at 5.27pm tonight. Hopefully,

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we will be in daylight for the whole show. Some of you saided that you

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were enjoying the polar bears you would love to see penguins too.

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Could we arrange that? Sadly know. We have a brill yanlt engineering

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team they could try to do a live link to the Antarctic. It might

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stretch them a little bit. We are game to do Antarctic Live, if you

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would like that write to the BBC. I can guarantee you Gordon Buchanan

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who said that he could deliver you polar bears live tonight. How are

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you getting on with that, Goedon? I have to add it wasn't a money back

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guarantee. I'm very, very happy that I can say, on behalf of the Ole

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Arctic Live team we have a live polar bear. It's been covered by

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snow. It's been lying there for so long. Not a huge amount of activity.

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What a difference a day makes, 11 days make. I arrived here and there

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wasn't a single drop of snow. Not a flake. Everything was brown and

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grey. The polar bears stood out incredibly well. For a polar bear

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those conditions are warm. When it's warm, polar bears get Lee that

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aringic. As the temperature dropped, polar bear activity went up. Not

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that you would know that right now. That's why we are out here in the

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cold on the tundra, hopefully, later in the programme, we will bring you

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a little bit more polar bear activity. Back to Kate. Thank you

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very much indeed, Gordon. 20 miles from here is the town of Churchill.

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That's where Simon Reeve is. I wonder if he's wearing a hat? Yes,

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I've got my hat on, thank you for worrying about me. I was fine

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yesterday, I have loads of hair. You don't need to be concerned. I'm here

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at the port in Churchill. The huge buildings are part of that. Gordon

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and Kate are in that direction, I think, out on the tundra looking for

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bears. Fill amming bears. Let's cross our fingers for them during

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this hour of live television. Over in that direction is Hudson Bay. I

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hope you were listening yesterday when I said Hudson Bay is big, five

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times the size of the United Kingdom. It's massive. Around us, in

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this region, there are hundreds and hundreds of polar bears waiting for

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Hudson Bay to freeze over to head out on the ice and start hunting

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seals this winter. Every year, because our climate is changing,

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that big freeze is happening a little bit later. I will talk more

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about the freeze and the isolator. I will talk about the strategic battle

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for the Arctic that is underway. First of all, let's look over here

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at the sleepy town of Churchill in the distance. Brady, just here,

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guarding us. Hell local, Brady, with his lovely dog. One of the houses

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over there is where some of our fantastic camera team are staying.

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They were able to film an enormous polar bear right outside their house

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the other night. We will show you that footage in a moment. The very

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fact that there are polar bears wandering around here, in the town

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occasionally, is why this area needs to have a specialist polar bear

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police force, would you believe it? Let's find out more. Churchill

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unique location has brought it global fame, but there are real

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risks from polar bears and humans living side by side. So this is

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where it happened? Yeah. The bear was coming and whipped around the

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corner. We had been outside for less than, like, two minutes. Three years

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ago Erin Green was on her way home from a party when she was stopped in

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her tracks. When I saw the bear running towards us I knew right away

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that it was going to be me. He kind of made a circle almost to get to

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the back of my head. It got its paws on my shoulder. Its jaw was on my

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head to tear at my scalp. At that point I thought - it's me and him

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and this is how I go. Erin had a very lucky escape. Neighbours came

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toll her rescue. Bear attacks here are actually very rare. The last

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fatality was in 1983. That's at least in part to the work of a

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dedicated force. Right now we're going to patrol Zone 1, which is

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Churchill itself and the immediate surrounding area. Brett is the

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senior patrol officer with Manitoba Conservation. Known to the locals as

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the Polar Bear Cops. Brett and his colleagues run a hot-line. Polar

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Bear Alert. Which residents use to call in bear sightings. Here they

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are shooting blanks into the air to scare off a bear spotted near the

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health centre. GUNFIRE. If a bear is not scared of humans, not

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intimidated, those are characteristics we want to

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intercept. Is that relationship here between polar bear in conflict? They

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make great neighbours, it's whether we make great neighbours with them.

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People in Churchill are cautious, especially after dark, but there is

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one night a year when kids take back the streets. Trick or treat.

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Hallowe'en is huge here, but trick or treating in polar bear season

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requires the vigilance of everyone in the town. Including volunteer

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firefighter, Brady Highway. It's on our minds here tonight. A lot of

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young ones out there, including my own. Kids out there, they deserve to

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have a Hallowe'en night as much as any other Canadian town. We try our

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best to provide that to them. Churchill proximity to bears has

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brought vital tourism and income. The people that live here never lose

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respect for their animal neighbours. Now, we don't have Polar Bear Cops

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out here in the tundra, what we do have are these magnificent vehicles.

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They look like they should be on the moon. They are tundra buggies they

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travel across this unpredictable and rough landscape. There is something

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special about them. That is their height off the ground. If you look

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down there. It's about 12 feet down. That is a good height for them to be

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because when the polar bears are more active than they are today,

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there is one hunkered down in the bush just there, hasn't really moved

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all day. If he was feeling a little bit frisky wanted to investigate,

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and he was a big male, he would be 10 feet tall on his behind legs.

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It's important we are two feet taller than him. The other thing

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about this buggy, it's actually like a little mobile TV studio. Up there

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are the antennae that are beaming the pictures live from the tundra

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here back to Churchill and then on to the UK. Inside it's a clever

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little place. It's somebody's home. We will meet him in a moment there.

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A fire, a bed. There is even a flashy loo. Here is the person who

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set up this buggy. BJ, he works for Polar bears International. How are

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you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you for letting us be in your home. Our

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engineers who make sure our pictures get to you. If you watched yesterday

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this is Dr Steve, how are you today? Good. You answered great questions

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for us yesterday. I will put you to the test to see how you fire up

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today. Row Sanaa asked, how many cubs does a polar bear? Usually two.

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Could she have one? She could adopt one through Polar bears

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International. Fantastic. We will come back to you later in the

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programme. Gordon is just, I don't know whether you can see him through

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the window. Just testing our cameraman to see how well he is

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doing. How are things out there? I for got to give you the basic polar

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bear facts. In the lull in proceedings with my live polar bear

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I'll sort of start running them off. A male polar bear tips the scales at

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800 kilo grams. Nose to tail is about two-and-a-half meters. A

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female around two meters long, but half the weight of a big male. The

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most fascinating fact of all is that every polar bear, even the biggest,

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started off as small as a guinea pig. It could fit in your hands.

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Maybe the weight of two packs of butter. Polar bears lives, all life

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in the Arctic, is driven by one thing. Earlier in the year Simon

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travelled to one of the most beautiful islands in the world to

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find out about that one thing, and it's ice.

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It's late summer in Greenland. I'm out with the ice patrol. We're on

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the look out for rogue icebergs. It's almost entirely covered by a

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sheet of ice. This ice patrol operates in the far south. Lars is

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the navigator and chief spotter. Looking for icebergs that can be a

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hazard for ships sailing in this area. You are basically looking for

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icebergs that are potential ship sinkers? Yes. How big does an

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iceberg need to be to a problem? It depends on their size. It could be a

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problem for the smaller ships passing. All the technology you have

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got, we are up in an extraordinary helicopter, but it boils down to

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your clipboard and a pencil? Yeah. I do a written report on this. What a

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hell of a place to work. The icebergs he is looking for have

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broken off from Greenland's vast ice sheet. The ice sheet is 656,000

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square miles. It is enormous. If is also incredibly thick. On average,

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it's much thicker than a mile. A mile thick. It feels like it has

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been here forever and that it will last until the end of time. But

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actually it's so fragile, it's so at risk from what we are doing to our

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planet. Our world is warming and the Arctic

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is heating faster than anywhere else on the planet. Military The

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Greenland ice sheet is melting at an astonishing rate. It's thought to

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have lost more than a trillion tonnes of ice in the past five

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years. Far more than is replaced by snowfall. If it all eventually goes,

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in this can century or the next, global sea levels will rise by

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around seven meters. I found it profound and sobering sight. In this

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ice sheet there is enough water to put tens of millions of people and

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their homes under water. It's an extraordinary thing to witness. This

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is the power of the Arctic. Scientists have already shown that

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rising air temperatures are melting the Greenland ice sheet, but there

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could be another powerful force at work that's further accelerating the

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process, a warmer ocean. Nobody has really been studying that, until

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now. To find out more I head nearly 500 miles north to Kangerlussuaq The

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One group of scientists are trying to find out, not just any

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scientists, NASA. They have just landed.

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The world toss leading space agency also spends a lot of time studying

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Earth, monitoring our planet's vital signs. Doctor Josh Willis is the

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lead scientist for a landmark Nasa study called OMG, oceans melting

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Greenland. This is our home for the next several weeks. Nasa's jet.

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Do you still get a thrill? Absolutely, it's an exciting place

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to be. They carry home astronauts on this. Goodness me! And now it is

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Josh. Nasa is air dropping sophisticated probes into the ocean

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to learn how quickly the sea is melting the ice sheet. Each one of

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these contained a sensor and an instrument package that can radio

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the data back to us. This is our tube. This is where we launch all of

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our probes. That is the toilet, which is where we sit when we launch

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our probes. I'll sit on the toilet. And this is a latch. We're able to

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drop the probe and they get sucked down the tube when you go. Oh, my

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goodness! Nasa let you cut a hole in, what is this, a Gulf Stream? A

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Gulf Stream three, that's right. And you put a bit of hype in there to

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send probes into the ocean. That's right, we will drop 250 probes into

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the ocean through this. Why does Greenland matter so much? We don't

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expect all of Greenland to melt in the next 100 years, but a big chunk

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of it is and we are yet to figure out how big a part of Greenland is

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going to melt and how much sea level rise we are in for. Are we already

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entering the time of consequences? We are definitely already seen the

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consequences of global warming. Sea levels have risen by around 21

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centimetres in the last 100 years and they are rising now at a faster

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rate than they were then. In fact, around three times faster than the

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weight 100 years ago. So the changes are happening and we are

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fundamentally changing the climate of the only planet we currently have

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and live on. Nasa says Earth is warming at an unprecedented pace.

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The agency has no doubt that our climate is changing. Reporting on

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14... The evidence gathered on this mission should give a clearer

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picture of how much damage that is doing to Greenland's colossal store

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of ice. Greenland's a place you can see in shocking close-up. The

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results, the consequences of climate change. Here, as much as anywhere on

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earth is the front line of our warming world. Look at this! An

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iceberg here. Can you see how blue that is? Look! Their's Iglesia! --

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glacier! Look at that! Look at that. What a site that is. Greenland is

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the Arctic at its most beautiful. But the melting now underway here is

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a warning of a future where the Arctic could affect us all. When you

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see melting glaciers, is normal, it has always happened, it should be

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happening now, but it is the rate at which it's happening now which is

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unnatural and worrying. This feels like I am witnessing the

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consequences of mankind's actions. And, if we warm our world too much,

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the ice sheet is going to melt away. I should really have set in that

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film that it's not just in Greenland where the glaciers are melting. It's

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across the Arctic. To discuss this, Arctic matters, I'm honoured to be

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joined by Professor David Barber. Hello, David. David is one of the

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world's leading experts on the Arctic. Thank you for coming. The

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world is warming and the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as

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anywhere else. What is happening? All the ice is melting, so what is

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happening is, as the planet warms up, that warmth makes its way to the

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Arctic, it melts the ice, and that has a number of different things

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that happen in the system to cause it to warm up even more. How much

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are we losing? If you look at the northern hemisphere, the ice

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retreats in the summer and grows out in the winter. If you take that

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minimum amount that happens in the summer, we've lost about 60% of that

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in the last 30 years. 60%?! Yes, and we are on a trajectory that ice will

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disappear in the summer between 2030 and 2050. That's the first time that

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will have happened in the development of human civilisation on

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our planet. My goodness. Our significant for us is that? You are

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talking about something a little entry-level I can feel the hairs on

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my arm going up. It is important for everybody to understand this. When

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the Arctic changes, it affects things on the rest of the planet.

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Those changes are already happening. People are starting to feel the

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impact of this change in the Arctic as far away as the tropics. People

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think that ice is ice, but ice is a platform for life. Also, the sea ice

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in the Arctic is quite vital for regulating the climate of the world.

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It is like a refrigerator for the planet, is that right? That's right.

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Really, the world should be called the oceans, because it is an ocean

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planet. The big oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, they take the heat from

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the equator and move it to the poles, then it sinks down to the

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bottom and moves back to the equator. What happens in that

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context is that we are removing that heat from the centre of the planet,

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the equator, and taking it to the poles. At the Arctic warms up, we

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are less able to do that, to refrigerate the oceans. What is the

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albedo effect? You alluded to it earlier. The albedo effect. The

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simplest way to think about it is you have an Arctic Ocean which is

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black if there is no sea ice. If there is sea ice, it is white, so

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the ice reflects the energy back to space, so that energy can't do

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anything in the climate system. If you have a big ocean, all that

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energy goes into the surface and warms up the ocean, so you have to

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get rid of the heat before you can freeze the ice. That is what you can

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see in the background, with the waves on the estuary, trying to get

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rid of that. So, the more ice we lose, the more planet will heat up.

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Exactly. For now, back to the tundra.

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Boring stuff. So I am here with doctor Steve. You witnessing the ice

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receding in Alaska was the thing which drove you to persuade the US

:22:58.:23:01.

government to declare the polar bear a threatened species. If we see

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further decline in the ice, what hope for polar bears? One thing we

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have going for us is there are still lots of polar bears in the world,

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maybe 20,000-20 5000. If we stop the decline in sea ice soon, we will

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preserve a large number of them. But can we do that? Lots of scientists

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and managers have shown that we have the ability. They have drawn up

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papers and plans. These are the steps we need to take. We can do

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this. The important thing is to turn that physical possibility into a

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political plausibility. I was going to say, do you think there is the

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political will? Talk of climate change isn't new. It's been talked

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about for three, four decades. We've had many climate change conferences

:23:57.:24:01.

and yet this march to global warming seems unstoppable at the moment. Do

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you really believe that there is the political will to do the things that

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the scientists say we must? I am more optimistic now than I've been

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for a long time. The recent meetings in Paris, most of the nations of the

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world got together, 195 Nations, and agreed that we need to do this for

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the preservation of future generations, all of us, the animals

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we love and us. They recently ratified, partners in this agreement

:24:33.:24:36.

have ratified the agreement, and many more are coming online. Over

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one half of the CO2 emissions are accounted for in the agreement.

:24:43.:24:46.

There are still political hurdles, however. Danny, who is ten, is our

:24:47.:24:52.

next generation coming up. He has asked via the website whether the

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damage man has caused is reversible, or perhaps is it stoppable? You seem

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to think it is. I am confident that we have the ability, and I think we

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have the momentum going to stop the changes in time to save polar bears.

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What can we do as individuals? The most important thing people can do

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at this point is to encourage their policymakers, political leaders,

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mayors, congressmen, members of Parliament, that we need to take

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this seriously, if we care about future generations. They need to

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lead us now. Thank you, Steve. To remind us how special these bears

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are, we have got live pictures of them from the tundra. I will let you

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look at those while I tell you that there is another dramatic symptom of

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climate change occurring throughout the Arctic, and it is something that

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I discovered when I went to visit Alaska.

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It is summertime in the American Arctic and the world is green and

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full of life. The state of Alaska is the most northerly and by far the

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largest in the US. The Arctic Circle passes right through the middle of

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it, just to the north of the town of Fairbanks, where today I'm ditching

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the warmth to find out what lurks beneath. Seems mad to be putting on

:26:21.:26:27.

a huge coat. It is going to get a bit cold. Wow!

:26:28.:26:34.

Jessica is my guide. We are walking into the side of a mountain,

:26:35.:26:45.

basically, in the permafrost tunnel. There is probably 200 feet of soil

:26:46.:26:52.

and ice and trees above us. The tunnel was excavated by the US Army

:26:53.:26:57.

in the 1960s to research the hidden ice that holds much of the Arctic

:26:58.:27:05.

together. So what is the definition of permafrost? Permafrost is

:27:06.:27:09.

permanently frozen ground so, as long as that ground has been frozen

:27:10.:27:14.

for two years, you can label that permafrost. If I touched that, does

:27:15.:27:20.

it feel frozen? Is it hard? Oh, yes. Scrape away a little bit. Give it a

:27:21.:27:29.

bang. My goodness! It is cold. It may look like solid earth, but

:27:30.:27:33.

permafrost is largely made up of ice. It's like a frozen soil

:27:34.:27:37.

smoothie am a sparkling in the gloom. Can I just have a small

:27:38.:27:46.

moment of wonder? It is viewed. -- frozen soil smoothie, sparkling.

:27:47.:27:54.

This is the glue which holds much of the Arctic together, but it is under

:27:55.:27:59.

threat. We always thought permafrost would stay frozen for ever but, as

:28:00.:28:05.

our climate warms, we have warmer temperatures coming deeper so, in

:28:06.:28:09.

zones where we previously had nothing but solid ice under our

:28:10.:28:14.

feet, now our roads are crumbling, our houses are falling off their

:28:15.:28:17.

foundations because they were built on ice that has melted. Across the

:28:18.:28:25.

Arctic, infrastructure built on permafrost is collapsing. Huge

:28:26.:28:29.

sinkholes have appeared, like this one in Siberia. An Alaska's northern

:28:30.:28:40.

coast, more small lakes form where permafrost has subsided and, from

:28:41.:28:44.

above, the entire landscape looks like cases. At the northernmost tip,

:28:45.:28:51.

the town of Barrow sits on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. -- the entire

:28:52.:29:01.

landscape looks like a sieve. There has been a roaming community here

:29:02.:29:05.

for a long time but the future of the town long term is now in doubt.

:29:06.:29:10.

Harry is offered to show me the scale of the problem. Look at this!

:29:11.:29:14.

Starting with a look at the ice seller where he once stored his

:29:15.:29:22.

whale meat. Wow! This seller is 40 feet deep. My goodness! My

:29:23.:29:34.

grandfather and his crews. They were dipping into frozen ground. Yes. It

:29:35.:29:40.

is important to store food in these cellars through the summer for later

:29:41.:29:46.

use. A cellar like this, dug into the permafrost, was once a reliable

:29:47.:29:51.

place to keep meat frozen, but that is not true now. When I was a young

:29:52.:29:57.

boy, permafrost melted in the summer to about two and a half, three feet.

:29:58.:30:04.

Now it goes down 25, 30 feet. Will you use this? Not this cellar, I

:30:05.:30:10.

have a different ice cellar. It is dangerous now. These walls are

:30:11.:30:13.

caving in but this is just an indication of a much bigger problem.

:30:14.:30:19.

Melting permafrost threatens the foundations of this entire coastal

:30:20.:30:25.

community. When I was a young boy, this bluff used to be ending right

:30:26.:30:32.

at the water's H. So all of that land is all gone? It eroded away. In

:30:33.:30:41.

your lifetime? Yes. It's been a big change, even in five to ten years.

:30:42.:30:47.

There were homes that have been moved, at least 200 feet inland. 200

:30:48.:30:54.

feet inland, and now they are, what, ten, 20 feet inland? As the ocean

:30:55.:31:01.

eats away at the weakened cliffs, these houses will need to be moved

:31:02.:31:04.

still further inland, which is no easy task.

:31:05.:31:08.

The old housing stock is built on stilts, drilled directly into the

:31:09.:31:16.

permafrost, transmitting yet more warmth into the once solid ground.

:31:17.:31:24.

But Andrew, from the local housing authority, is working on a new home

:31:25.:31:28.

to solve these problems. It's not hard to spot. Wow, what a colour!

:31:29.:31:35.

Don't you love it It makes you feel warm looking at it It does. How does

:31:36.:31:40.

this one work? One of the best things about this house there is no

:31:41.:31:45.

penetration or direct connection to this. This is sitting on insulation.

:31:46.:31:50.

That's really clever. Any heat that escapes from the house won't go down

:31:51.:31:54.

into the permafrost? You've got it. In a place where the ground can

:31:55.:31:59.

become unstable over night, another innovation could save a lot of

:32:00.:32:07.

trouble. You put it on a sled. What? You are like a mad professor! It is

:32:08.:32:14.

literally on a sled. It's on a sled. You pick it up, you pull the pads

:32:15.:32:19.

away. Yeah. You drop it down, you move it where you want to. So if

:32:20.:32:24.

somebody has a home on the coast that is suffering from coastal

:32:25.:32:28.

erosion, like so many of the houses in Barrow have, all they need to do

:32:29.:32:32.

is pull the house back to another spot? Relocate. That's very clever

:32:33.:32:40.

indeed. Do they all have to come in yellow though? It can come in any

:32:41.:32:42.

colour you want it to! LAUGHTER. These skiing homes could soon be a

:32:43.:32:52.

common sight across Barrow. Several are already in use in the village of

:32:53.:32:59.

Wainwright, just down the coast. As the land softens and is eaten away

:33:00.:33:05.

by the ocean, being mobile could help these communities to adopt and

:33:06.:33:11.

survive. But the real tragedy is that now it's underway the loss of

:33:12.:33:18.

permafrost seems irreversible. Our climate is too warm now to make ice,

:33:19.:33:22.

ground ice any more. It's what we would call a tipping point, when the

:33:23.:33:26.

permafrost melts. Once you have gone over that edge, you can't come back.

:33:27.:33:32.

We would never get it back? Right. Not in our lifetime, not in our kids

:33:33.:33:40.

or grandkids lifetimes either. It sounds quite apolyp particular? It

:33:41.:33:44.

can sound that way. This is the frontline of climate change. David

:33:45.:33:53.

as if it wasn't bad enough that the permafrost is melting and houses are

:33:54.:33:58.

cracking and roads, tell us about methane? Well, the problem we are

:33:59.:34:02.

into right now is because of greenhouse gases. People are aware

:34:03.:34:07.

of that now. This reliance of fossil fuels are putting carbon dioxide in

:34:08.:34:11.

the air. Another big one is methane. It's tied up in the permafrost you

:34:12.:34:16.

see around here in the Hudson Bay lowlands and the Arctic and these

:34:17.:34:19.

low land areas and the ocean, the ocean floor. A natural gas and a

:34:20.:34:23.

greenhouse gas? A potent greenhouse gas. Efficient of trapping heat in

:34:24.:34:30.

against the planet. Adding that to the CO2 in the atmosphere makes the

:34:31.:34:36.

problem worse. OK. Tell us about feedback loops. Don't you switch

:34:37.:34:39.

off. It's very important. We will explain. What is a feedback loop? We

:34:40.:34:44.

use it in a scientific literature when we are talking about how a

:34:45.:34:48.

system works. What you do is you add something and that causes a response

:34:49.:34:51.

of some kind. That response creates more of that thing, it goes back in

:34:52.:34:57.

the system which creates more again. The cycle continues and you get a

:34:58.:35:02.

feedback loop. The more we heat the world, more methane is released into

:35:03.:35:06.

the permafrost into the atmosphere, heats the world more, melting more

:35:07.:35:11.

permafrost and releasing the Met Thane? We are at the point where the

:35:12.:35:15.

feedback loops are becoming popular in our climate system, particularly

:35:16.:35:21.

in the Arctic because the Arctic has this very subtle transition between

:35:22.:35:25.

when something is frozen and thawed. People will say, it looks cold where

:35:26.:35:30.

you are, what is there to worry about? It's warmer than it should

:35:31.:35:35.

be. The ocean behind us is open. The rivers are open still. Lakes are

:35:36.:35:38.

starting to freeze. These changes going on in the Arctic are already

:35:39.:35:42.

here. We are already seeing them. It doesn't just affect the Arctic, it

:35:43.:35:45.

affects the rest of the planet as well. People are seeing this weird

:35:46.:35:49.

weather going down in southern latitudes. This problem is already

:35:50.:35:54.

here. OK. Thank you very much indeed, David.

:35:55.:35:56.

We are in a time of consequences, I think you are saying. We will go

:35:57.:36:02.

back to the tundra. We go back to Gordon Thank you, Simon. It's a good

:36:03.:36:06.

day to talk about other bear behaviour we have seen or bear

:36:07.:36:12.

behaviour we have seen in recent days I'm joined by Professor Andrew

:36:13.:36:19.

Rosha. That bear lift his head. You recognised him it could be Van Gogh.

:36:20.:36:27.

Yes. They come back to the same spots year after year. He is a

:36:28.:36:32.

mature male. He probably lost that by not paying enough attention when

:36:33.:36:35.

he was fighting. That would be during the springtime during a

:36:36.:36:40.

mating event. Which they of polar bears being solitary hunters, this

:36:41.:36:44.

is the one niem their life cycle, their year, they can interact with

:36:45.:36:47.

each other. We have footage we got two-days ago, I shot it of two bears

:36:48.:36:57.

sparring? This is typical behaviour for young males. They are practicing

:36:58.:37:02.

their fighting skills. They are about the same size. That is

:37:03.:37:09.

typical. Like kids. They wrestle with somebody of their same age and

:37:10.:37:13.

size and practicing when it matters. Nothing to fight about at this time

:37:14.:37:16.

of year, no breeding activity, no food. It's, working on your skills

:37:17.:37:21.

and maybe, just maybe, you will meet this bear another time you will know

:37:22.:37:24.

just how good a fighter he is and whether or not it's worth a scrap.

:37:25.:37:29.

It seems to be a balance of power here. Those two young bears

:37:30.:37:36.

disappeared when a big fella showed over the horizon. There has been a

:37:37.:37:42.

scarcity of females with cubs. One of our cameramen filmed a female

:37:43.:37:46.

with cubs in this area. Fantastic to see. They were lying in the snow. No

:37:47.:37:52.

problems at all. Not worried about anything. She sensed something and

:37:53.:37:55.

she had obviously smelt another bear. Her head comes up. She spots

:37:56.:38:02.

this fella. Huge, big bear. I don't know if at this point she had seen

:38:03.:38:06.

him, she got higher up. She seemed to be able to sense there was

:38:07.:38:10.

something not quite right. Then I think she saw him and move out of

:38:11.:38:14.

there. Got her kids up and started walking. I think it just kicked in,

:38:15.:38:19.

the fear factor kicked in, she started to run. There is good reason

:38:20.:38:25.

for that, isn't there? Exactly. Most of the females with cubs are far

:38:26.:38:28.

inland at this time of year. They come to the coast very sparingly.

:38:29.:38:34.

The reason is, this is sort of the primary real estate for bears. The

:38:35.:38:37.

big males are here. It's a dangerous place for her to be. OK. There is

:38:38.:38:43.

time for a very quick question and quick answer. Kieran asks - how fast

:38:44.:38:48.

with cup of those polar bears run? A lots faster than you. Number one,

:38:49.:38:53.

they can get up to 20mph. If you are a big, fat, male, you are not moving

:38:54.:39:00.

that fast. Usain Bolt, 20mph. Earlier in the year Kate went to

:39:01.:39:04.

Sweden to find out how some recent changes in the Arctic are affecting

:39:05.:39:08.

some ancient ways of life. These are the lands of the Sami

:39:09.:39:30.

people, some of whom still herd reindeer for a living.let Sami

:39:31.:39:34.

territory stretches right across northern Scandinavia and into

:39:35.:39:37.

Russia. The march of developments in the Arctic means they are not alone.

:39:38.:39:43.

Nearly 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle lies the town of Kiruna.

:39:44.:39:50.

Kiruna is home to the largest underground iron oar mine in the

:39:51.:39:57.

world. They are mining 80,000 tonnes out of this mine every day. Wow. A

:39:58.:40:02.

lot from here goes mostly to Europe. We have 90% of the market. 90%? Yes.

:40:03.:40:08.

We are the biggest supplier in the European Union. That is

:40:09.:40:13.

extraordinary. The mine is enormous and the resulting scars across the

:40:14.:40:17.

landscape have dominated this area for generations. It was first found

:40:18.:40:23.

in the 16th century and we started to mine large scale in the 1920s. My

:40:24.:40:28.

grandfather, he worked here his whole life as a driller. Iron oar

:40:29.:40:37.

was exstrablthed from open cast pits blasted into two small mountains. --

:40:38.:40:45.

extracted. When it ran out in the 1960s they went underground. Above

:40:46.:40:52.

ground infrastructure to support the mine has expanded, too. Like much of

:40:53.:41:00.

the Arctic, the extraction. Resources has accelerated rapidly in

:41:01.:41:04.

northern Sweden, but not everyone has benefitted. I'm heading to a

:41:05.:41:11.

community north. The people here also make a living from the land,

:41:12.:41:18.

but in a very different way. Oh, my goodness. LAUGHTER. Just ahead of me

:41:19.:41:26.

here, there's the most magnificent herd of reindeer, just running

:41:27.:41:30.

across the snow here. Look at that! That's just magnificent. They are

:41:31.:41:39.

incredibly agile, perfectly, perfectly evolved for this

:41:40.:41:42.

landscape. That's the most wonderful sight. The reindeer on these

:41:43.:41:51.

mountains belong to a Sami community who spend the summer in a small

:41:52.:42:01.

cluster of cabins on the lakeshore. Hi. I'm Kate. Hi. Lovely to meet

:42:02.:42:09.

you. Nice to meet you too. What an amazing place? I know. It's

:42:10.:42:18.

beautiful. Today my guide as offered to show me around. Why come up here

:42:19.:42:25.

every summer? Is it to have a nice summer holiday? No. It's a working

:42:26.:42:35.

place. The reindeer have the best pasture, best for the calves and the

:42:36.:42:39.

mums to get the best milk for their babies. The reindeer are bred for

:42:40.:42:44.

their meat which is popular in Scandinavia. They can travel over

:42:45.:42:52.

1,000 miles a year in search of the best grazing. The herds move between

:42:53.:42:57.

lush upland pasture in the summer and sheltered lowlands in the

:42:58.:43:01.

winter. For hundreds of years, the Sami have moved with them. But for

:43:02.:43:10.

this herd, the mine lies directly on their route. When they migrated down

:43:11.:43:16.

to the winter pasture or up to the summer pasture they went exactly

:43:17.:43:20.

where the town is right now. Now there is a town there and a very

:43:21.:43:25.

substantial mine, what have you lost? We have lost pasture land. We

:43:26.:43:33.

have lost migration land. We have been forced to move our migration

:43:34.:43:37.

paths several times Is that a problem? It's a problem because the

:43:38.:43:41.

reindeer has in its mind how it goes. The reindeer have a map.

:43:42.:43:47.

Right. When you put a city, a mine or a road on that migrating trail,

:43:48.:43:54.

you kind of mess up the reindeer's way of moving and they get lost.

:43:55.:44:01.

Roads and railways cut across ancient migration routes. While the

:44:02.:44:06.

mine has built bridges for the animals, they still stray onto the

:44:07.:44:13.

tracks. Last year we had 56 reindeer killed by the train. It's kind of a

:44:14.:44:20.

bloody mess. What have you gained from the mine and the town? Do you

:44:21.:44:23.

get any income from it? It gives compensation. We have some kind of

:44:24.:44:30.

agreement nowadays. Reindeer can't eat money and people can't eat

:44:31.:44:39.

money, you no know. -- you know. We want the land, we don't want the

:44:40.:44:45.

money, you know. As the community fights its corner, life continues

:44:46.:44:48.

and this year's calves must be counted and marked.

:44:49.:44:56.

It's midsummer here and the Arctic sun only dips briefly below

:44:57.:44:59.

But the drop in temperature is the Sami's chance to tempt

:45:00.:45:05.

You've got a helicopter that's working almost like a giant sheepdog

:45:06.:45:28.

and in partnership with the guys on motorbikes and quadbikes

:45:29.:45:31.

and they're driving this river of reindeer over this incredibly

:45:32.:45:34.

rough terrain, and it's just the most beautiful sight.

:45:35.:45:43.

There are only around 20,000 Sami left in Sweden and just a small

:45:44.:45:46.

So there's a determination to preserve this way of life

:45:47.:45:54.

which is so integral to Sami culture.

:45:55.:46:00.

The reindeer have now been funnelled into the corral,

:46:01.:46:02.

it's the most fantastic sort of co-ordinated community effort.

:46:03.:46:09.

Each Sami family has its own reindeer, so they round up any

:46:10.:46:12.

new calves and tag them by marking their ears.

:46:13.:46:18.

I get the feeling that this is a day of excitement, but mixed

:46:19.:46:22.

These reindeer, although they're domesticated, although they all

:46:23.:46:29.

belong to families, live very much as wild animals,

:46:30.:46:33.

so today is a big reveal for this community.

:46:34.:46:37.

How many calves have they had over calving season?

:46:38.:46:40.

All that will then give them some sense of what their income

:46:41.:46:48.

In the face of continued development of their ancestral lands, the Sami

:46:49.:47:09.

are battling to hang their traditional herding lifestyle,

:47:10.:47:11.

hoping that seems like this will remain an intrinsic part of the

:47:12.:47:21.

future of the Swedish Arctic. Absolutely beautiful part of the

:47:22.:47:24.

world, that. I'm in an equally beautiful part of the world. In

:47:25.:47:31.

Sweden, it was the mine disrupting the migratory route of the reindeer.

:47:32.:47:37.

There, it appears that Churchill is disrupting, if not the migratory

:47:38.:47:40.

route, the route that the polar bears use to the ice, and we've got

:47:41.:47:44.

some pretty shocking footage from 1982 of bears foraging on the town

:47:45.:47:51.

dump. Not a nice thing for anybody to look at. Were they there because

:47:52.:47:56.

it was directly on their route, or will they rusher or work they pulled

:47:57.:48:01.

off their route by the smell of rubbish? I think the major influence

:48:02.:48:06.

is the smell of something they think is good. That presumably isn't

:48:07.:48:12.

healthy for the bears, not just eating rubbish, but is it a

:48:13.:48:17.

behaviour that gets passed down generations? It is the mother bears

:48:18.:48:21.

that teach the young bears the route to the ice. That's right. These

:48:22.:48:27.

animals live a long time, they remember events in their past and,

:48:28.:48:31.

if they are good, they pass them on. If they find food or even the smell

:48:32.:48:36.

of food, it's likely their offspring will be there as well. Churchill has

:48:37.:48:40.

addressed this problem and rubbish is dealt with in a different way,

:48:41.:48:45.

but Gordon last week filmed this very skinny looking female polar

:48:46.:48:51.

bear with her cub desperately looking around the Wii cycling

:48:52.:48:55.

centre. Is that learned behaviour? Did she possibly learn it from her

:48:56.:49:02.

mother? -- recycling centre. I would bet that is probably the case.

:49:03.:49:07.

Churchill has a problem with conflict with polar bears. Is that

:49:08.:49:13.

unique? Churchill maybe has the lead in addressing this is a problem, but

:49:14.:49:17.

it is happening all over the Arctic and it will only happen more as we

:49:18.:49:22.

have less and less sea ice, hungry bears and more humans in the Arctic,

:49:23.:49:26.

in the places that used to be the sole domain of the polar bear. Thank

:49:27.:49:32.

you, Steve. Let's go back to a film Simon made in a country making the

:49:33.:49:34.

most of climate change. I'm travelling through a part

:49:35.:49:41.

of the Russian Arctic that, just 25 years ago, was off

:49:42.:49:44.

limits to Westerners. After crossing the border

:49:45.:49:47.

with Norway by road, I'm heading along the Kola Peninsula

:49:48.:49:49.

and towards the Arctic There's been a huge military

:49:50.:49:52.

presence here since the Cold War, when this area was a key frontier

:49:53.:50:00.

between East and West. We've turned off the main road

:50:01.:50:07.

and we're heading to a top secret military base,

:50:08.:50:10.

or at least it used I'm meeting up with military

:50:11.:50:12.

expert, Mark Protasov. Ah...

:50:13.:50:27.

This is huge. In the high Arctic we are inside

:50:28.:51:13.

what's thought to be an abandoned Thank God the warheads

:51:14.:51:27.

from here were never fired in anger. This is a scary sign

:51:28.:51:45.

to see, look. Apparently, this place has been

:51:46.:51:49.

checked out and is now safe, but I don't really think I've ever

:51:50.:51:52.

been anywhere quite like this. The warheads here probably

:51:53.:51:59.

supplied the submarine fleet But, with the reduction

:52:00.:52:01.

of nuclear stockpiles, It's quite astonishing

:52:02.:52:07.

to be here, really. When I was a lad, this was the enemy

:52:08.:52:14.

base when the Soviet Union was a super power and so much

:52:15.:52:18.

of its military might was concentrated and focused

:52:19.:52:25.

up here in the Arctic. Then, of course, the Soviet Union

:52:26.:52:31.

collapsed, here it's And, again, the Arctic is becoming

:52:32.:52:33.

a focus of attention - economically, I head east through miles

:52:34.:52:40.

of endless Arctic tundra, until suddenly there was a dramatic

:52:41.:52:53.

change in scenery. This is a full size city

:52:54.:53:06.

inside the Arctic Circle. With 300,000 people,

:53:07.:53:19.

it's the biggest city It's also one of Russia's key ports

:53:20.:53:23.

because the warm currents of the Gulf Stream keep the water

:53:24.:53:29.

here ice-free all year round. An extraordinary memorial looks West

:53:30.:53:34.

to mark the Red Army's heroic stand against the Germans

:53:35.:53:37.

during the Second World War. Now the melting Arctic means

:53:38.:53:41.

Russians, like Sergei Balmasov, are eyeing a lucrative trade route

:53:42.:53:45.

to the East. The northern sea route

:53:46.:54:10.

is along the top of Russia, It enables a ship to travel more

:54:11.:54:13.

directly from China to Europe, cutting up to a fortnight

:54:14.:54:21.

of existing routes. It's rapidly becoming a reality

:54:22.:54:26.

as the sea ice thins and melts. Russia sees new opportunities

:54:27.:54:29.

in the Arctic. The Russian Arctic won't be ice-free

:54:30.:54:59.

immediately and as the pack ice melts there will still be

:55:00.:55:02.

icebergs floating around. So anyone using Arctic shipping

:55:03.:55:08.

routes will need icebreakers, and the biggest of

:55:09.:55:10.

those are all Russian. Captain Andre Martinoff

:55:11.:55:16.

is my guide to the Lenin. I'll follow you, you go first,

:55:17.:55:23.

you're the captain. Built in the 1950s, this

:55:24.:55:28.

was the world's first It was so efficient,

:55:29.:55:30.

it could break ice for a whole day on just a matchbox size

:55:31.:55:39.

piece of uranium. Did people worry about working

:55:40.:55:43.

on nuclear ships as opposed The Russians have steadily built up

:55:44.:55:51.

a huge icebreaker fleet, leaving It's thought Russia now has more

:55:52.:56:13.

than 40 icebreakers, many of What's it like to be up

:56:14.:56:18.

here on the bridge when they're Russia is committing vast resources

:56:19.:56:23.

to conquering the frozen North. More than any other country,

:56:24.:56:53.

it has the ability to create shipping lanes and exploit

:56:54.:56:55.

the melting Arctic. People can talk as much

:56:56.:57:01.

as they like about who owns the Arctic in theory,

:57:02.:57:04.

but the reality, up here in the frozen North,

:57:05.:57:06.

is that while the United States has just a couple of working

:57:07.:57:11.

icebreakers, Russia has dozens, and that makes Russia the real

:57:12.:57:19.

power in the Arctic. I just wanted to show you this

:57:20.:57:35.

place. It's rather atmospheric. It's very strange for me to have been in

:57:36.:57:39.

a bustling city of Murmansk in Russia a couple of months ago, and

:57:40.:57:45.

now to be here in the Canadian Arctic, in sleepy Churchill. Canada

:57:46.:57:50.

is an Arctic country, of course, but this, this is Canada's only real

:57:51.:57:55.

deepwater Arctic Seaport, on a coastline of more than 100,000

:57:56.:58:01.

miles. It used to bring -- they used to bring grain in here on these

:58:02.:58:07.

train tracks from the prairies in the south, but they have stopped

:58:08.:58:11.

that recently and it looks like this place is being mothballed. So many

:58:12.:58:14.

people around the world are talking about how the Arctic is up for

:58:15.:58:19.

grabs, how it is strategically important, and you saw in the film

:58:20.:58:23.

how Russia is committing huge resources to owning the Arctic. I

:58:24.:58:27.

would suggest other countries are getting left in. That's it from me.

:58:28.:58:30.

Back to the tundra. Can you believe it? Just as we are

:58:31.:58:37.

about to go off air, the two polar bears are starting to move around. I

:58:38.:58:40.

guarantee tomorrow it will be really cold.

:58:41.:58:46.

Thanks, Gordon. Amazing sites, these bears. I'm going to leave you with

:58:47.:58:52.

those and tell you that, tomorrow, Simon comes face-to-face with

:58:53.:58:55.

monsters of the deep, Gordon discovers how troublesome bears get

:58:56.:59:00.

evicted from town, and I go to a community of extraordinary artists.

:59:01.:59:04.

Tom Harris, is six-year-old, said, what is ice? He said, frozen water.

:59:05.:59:10.

No, dad, it's a platform for life. Good night.

:59:11.:59:38.

ROLLER-COASTER NOISE, PEOPLE SCREAMING

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ROLLER-COASTER NOISE, PEOPLE SCREAMING

:59:41.:59:48.

They also love supporting BBC Children In Need.

:59:49.:59:52.

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