:00:00. > :00:09.It's minus 13, the winds are gusting up to 80 kilometers and hour. There
:00:10. > :00:14.is a polar bear hiding in the bush just over my shoulder. You could
:00:15. > :00:44.only be watching one thing - this is Arctic Live.
:00:45. > :00:50.Welcome to the magnificent Arctic tundra, just outside the Canadian
:00:51. > :00:55.town of Churchill on the shores of Hudson Bay. We are here at a truly
:00:56. > :00:59.dynamic time of year. It's the onset of winter, before it really takes
:01:00. > :01:03.its grip and the Bay freezes over. Now, there is one animal in
:01:04. > :01:07.particular that is impatient for that to happen. It is of course the
:01:08. > :01:12.region's polar bears. Throughout the summer they have been scattered out
:01:13. > :01:16.here in the tundra, now they are gathering, literally, they are all
:01:17. > :01:20.around us. Waiting for that ice to form, waiting for the moment that
:01:21. > :01:26.they can hunt for the first time in months. Now, last night you
:01:27. > :01:29.contacted us throughout the show using the #ArcticLive. Or you
:01:30. > :01:33.e-mailed us at arcticlive@bbc.co.uk. Now, I have a little thing to sort
:01:34. > :01:38.out with some of you sceptics out there. You thought we weren't live
:01:39. > :01:45.because it's daylight. It's a five hour time difference between here
:01:46. > :01:49.and the UK. It's 3.00pm, just after, sunset at 5.27pm tonight. Hopefully,
:01:50. > :01:54.we will be in daylight for the whole show. Some of you saided that you
:01:55. > :01:57.were enjoying the polar bears you would love to see penguins too.
:01:58. > :02:02.Could we arrange that? Sadly know. We have a brill yanlt engineering
:02:03. > :02:07.team they could try to do a live link to the Antarctic. It might
:02:08. > :02:12.stretch them a little bit. We are game to do Antarctic Live, if you
:02:13. > :02:16.would like that write to the BBC. I can guarantee you Gordon Buchanan
:02:17. > :02:21.who said that he could deliver you polar bears live tonight. How are
:02:22. > :02:26.you getting on with that, Goedon? I have to add it wasn't a money back
:02:27. > :02:33.guarantee. I'm very, very happy that I can say, on behalf of the Ole
:02:34. > :02:38.Arctic Live team we have a live polar bear. It's been covered by
:02:39. > :02:44.snow. It's been lying there for so long. Not a huge amount of activity.
:02:45. > :02:48.What a difference a day makes, 11 days make. I arrived here and there
:02:49. > :02:52.wasn't a single drop of snow. Not a flake. Everything was brown and
:02:53. > :02:57.grey. The polar bears stood out incredibly well. For a polar bear
:02:58. > :03:00.those conditions are warm. When it's warm, polar bears get Lee that
:03:01. > :03:04.aringic. As the temperature dropped, polar bear activity went up. Not
:03:05. > :03:11.that you would know that right now. That's why we are out here in the
:03:12. > :03:13.cold on the tundra, hopefully, later in the programme, we will bring you
:03:14. > :03:20.a little bit more polar bear activity. Back to Kate. Thank you
:03:21. > :03:24.very much indeed, Gordon. 20 miles from here is the town of Churchill.
:03:25. > :03:30.That's where Simon Reeve is. I wonder if he's wearing a hat? Yes,
:03:31. > :03:33.I've got my hat on, thank you for worrying about me. I was fine
:03:34. > :03:37.yesterday, I have loads of hair. You don't need to be concerned. I'm here
:03:38. > :03:42.at the port in Churchill. The huge buildings are part of that. Gordon
:03:43. > :03:46.and Kate are in that direction, I think, out on the tundra looking for
:03:47. > :03:51.bears. Fill amming bears. Let's cross our fingers for them during
:03:52. > :03:55.this hour of live television. Over in that direction is Hudson Bay. I
:03:56. > :03:59.hope you were listening yesterday when I said Hudson Bay is big, five
:04:00. > :04:04.times the size of the United Kingdom. It's massive. Around us, in
:04:05. > :04:08.this region, there are hundreds and hundreds of polar bears waiting for
:04:09. > :04:12.Hudson Bay to freeze over to head out on the ice and start hunting
:04:13. > :04:14.seals this winter. Every year, because our climate is changing,
:04:15. > :04:19.that big freeze is happening a little bit later. I will talk more
:04:20. > :04:22.about the freeze and the isolator. I will talk about the strategic battle
:04:23. > :04:27.for the Arctic that is underway. First of all, let's look over here
:04:28. > :04:32.at the sleepy town of Churchill in the distance. Brady, just here,
:04:33. > :04:35.guarding us. Hell local, Brady, with his lovely dog. One of the houses
:04:36. > :04:40.over there is where some of our fantastic camera team are staying.
:04:41. > :04:43.They were able to film an enormous polar bear right outside their house
:04:44. > :04:48.the other night. We will show you that footage in a moment. The very
:04:49. > :04:54.fact that there are polar bears wandering around here, in the town
:04:55. > :04:56.occasionally, is why this area needs to have a specialist polar bear
:04:57. > :05:05.police force, would you believe it? Let's find out more. Churchill
:05:06. > :05:09.unique location has brought it global fame, but there are real
:05:10. > :05:16.risks from polar bears and humans living side by side. So this is
:05:17. > :05:19.where it happened? Yeah. The bear was coming and whipped around the
:05:20. > :05:25.corner. We had been outside for less than, like, two minutes. Three years
:05:26. > :05:29.ago Erin Green was on her way home from a party when she was stopped in
:05:30. > :05:33.her tracks. When I saw the bear running towards us I knew right away
:05:34. > :05:39.that it was going to be me. He kind of made a circle almost to get to
:05:40. > :05:45.the back of my head. It got its paws on my shoulder. Its jaw was on my
:05:46. > :05:50.head to tear at my scalp. At that point I thought - it's me and him
:05:51. > :05:58.and this is how I go. Erin had a very lucky escape. Neighbours came
:05:59. > :06:04.toll her rescue. Bear attacks here are actually very rare. The last
:06:05. > :06:09.fatality was in 1983. That's at least in part to the work of a
:06:10. > :06:14.dedicated force. Right now we're going to patrol Zone 1, which is
:06:15. > :06:20.Churchill itself and the immediate surrounding area. Brett is the
:06:21. > :06:28.senior patrol officer with Manitoba Conservation. Known to the locals as
:06:29. > :06:32.the Polar Bear Cops. Brett and his colleagues run a hot-line. Polar
:06:33. > :06:37.Bear Alert. Which residents use to call in bear sightings. Here they
:06:38. > :06:45.are shooting blanks into the air to scare off a bear spotted near the
:06:46. > :06:48.health centre. GUNFIRE. If a bear is not scared of humans, not
:06:49. > :07:00.intimidated, those are characteristics we want to
:07:01. > :07:06.intercept. Is that relationship here between polar bear in conflict? They
:07:07. > :07:11.make great neighbours, it's whether we make great neighbours with them.
:07:12. > :07:15.People in Churchill are cautious, especially after dark, but there is
:07:16. > :07:28.one night a year when kids take back the streets. Trick or treat.
:07:29. > :07:34.Hallowe'en is huge here, but trick or treating in polar bear season
:07:35. > :07:40.requires the vigilance of everyone in the town. Including volunteer
:07:41. > :07:44.firefighter, Brady Highway. It's on our minds here tonight. A lot of
:07:45. > :07:50.young ones out there, including my own. Kids out there, they deserve to
:07:51. > :07:56.have a Hallowe'en night as much as any other Canadian town. We try our
:07:57. > :08:00.best to provide that to them. Churchill proximity to bears has
:08:01. > :08:09.brought vital tourism and income. The people that live here never lose
:08:10. > :08:15.respect for their animal neighbours. Now, we don't have Polar Bear Cops
:08:16. > :08:19.out here in the tundra, what we do have are these magnificent vehicles.
:08:20. > :08:25.They look like they should be on the moon. They are tundra buggies they
:08:26. > :08:29.travel across this unpredictable and rough landscape. There is something
:08:30. > :08:33.special about them. That is their height off the ground. If you look
:08:34. > :08:37.down there. It's about 12 feet down. That is a good height for them to be
:08:38. > :08:41.because when the polar bears are more active than they are today,
:08:42. > :08:47.there is one hunkered down in the bush just there, hasn't really moved
:08:48. > :08:52.all day. If he was feeling a little bit frisky wanted to investigate,
:08:53. > :08:55.and he was a big male, he would be 10 feet tall on his behind legs.
:08:56. > :09:00.It's important we are two feet taller than him. The other thing
:09:01. > :09:06.about this buggy, it's actually like a little mobile TV studio. Up there
:09:07. > :09:10.are the antennae that are beaming the pictures live from the tundra
:09:11. > :09:16.here back to Churchill and then on to the UK. Inside it's a clever
:09:17. > :09:23.little place. It's somebody's home. We will meet him in a moment there.
:09:24. > :09:29.A fire, a bed. There is even a flashy loo. Here is the person who
:09:30. > :09:36.set up this buggy. BJ, he works for Polar bears International. How are
:09:37. > :09:44.you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you for letting us be in your home. Our
:09:45. > :09:50.engineers who make sure our pictures get to you. If you watched yesterday
:09:51. > :09:54.this is Dr Steve, how are you today? Good. You answered great questions
:09:55. > :10:00.for us yesterday. I will put you to the test to see how you fire up
:10:01. > :10:05.today. Row Sanaa asked, how many cubs does a polar bear? Usually two.
:10:06. > :10:09.Could she have one? She could adopt one through Polar bears
:10:10. > :10:13.International. Fantastic. We will come back to you later in the
:10:14. > :10:22.programme. Gordon is just, I don't know whether you can see him through
:10:23. > :10:25.the window. Just testing our cameraman to see how well he is
:10:26. > :10:30.doing. How are things out there? I for got to give you the basic polar
:10:31. > :10:34.bear facts. In the lull in proceedings with my live polar bear
:10:35. > :10:42.I'll sort of start running them off. A male polar bear tips the scales at
:10:43. > :10:46.800 kilo grams. Nose to tail is about two-and-a-half meters. A
:10:47. > :10:53.female around two meters long, but half the weight of a big male. The
:10:54. > :10:59.most fascinating fact of all is that every polar bear, even the biggest,
:11:00. > :11:04.started off as small as a guinea pig. It could fit in your hands.
:11:05. > :11:10.Maybe the weight of two packs of butter. Polar bears lives, all life
:11:11. > :11:15.in the Arctic, is driven by one thing. Earlier in the year Simon
:11:16. > :11:19.travelled to one of the most beautiful islands in the world to
:11:20. > :11:25.find out about that one thing, and it's ice.
:11:26. > :11:44.It's late summer in Greenland. I'm out with the ice patrol. We're on
:11:45. > :11:53.the look out for rogue icebergs. It's almost entirely covered by a
:11:54. > :12:03.sheet of ice. This ice patrol operates in the far south. Lars is
:12:04. > :12:06.the navigator and chief spotter. Looking for icebergs that can be a
:12:07. > :12:13.hazard for ships sailing in this area. You are basically looking for
:12:14. > :12:21.icebergs that are potential ship sinkers? Yes. How big does an
:12:22. > :12:26.iceberg need to be to a problem? It depends on their size. It could be a
:12:27. > :12:34.problem for the smaller ships passing. All the technology you have
:12:35. > :12:38.got, we are up in an extraordinary helicopter, but it boils down to
:12:39. > :12:47.your clipboard and a pencil? Yeah. I do a written report on this. What a
:12:48. > :12:52.hell of a place to work. The icebergs he is looking for have
:12:53. > :13:02.broken off from Greenland's vast ice sheet. The ice sheet is 656,000
:13:03. > :13:07.square miles. It is enormous. If is also incredibly thick. On average,
:13:08. > :13:14.it's much thicker than a mile. A mile thick. It feels like it has
:13:15. > :13:21.been here forever and that it will last until the end of time. But
:13:22. > :13:23.actually it's so fragile, it's so at risk from what we are doing to our
:13:24. > :13:33.planet. Our world is warming and the Arctic
:13:34. > :13:38.is heating faster than anywhere else on the planet. Military The
:13:39. > :13:42.Greenland ice sheet is melting at an astonishing rate. It's thought to
:13:43. > :13:47.have lost more than a trillion tonnes of ice in the past five
:13:48. > :13:53.years. Far more than is replaced by snowfall. If it all eventually goes,
:13:54. > :13:59.in this can century or the next, global sea levels will rise by
:14:00. > :14:06.around seven meters. I found it profound and sobering sight. In this
:14:07. > :14:13.ice sheet there is enough water to put tens of millions of people and
:14:14. > :14:22.their homes under water. It's an extraordinary thing to witness. This
:14:23. > :14:26.is the power of the Arctic. Scientists have already shown that
:14:27. > :14:31.rising air temperatures are melting the Greenland ice sheet, but there
:14:32. > :14:36.could be another powerful force at work that's further accelerating the
:14:37. > :14:42.process, a warmer ocean. Nobody has really been studying that, until
:14:43. > :14:53.now. To find out more I head nearly 500 miles north to Kangerlussuaq The
:14:54. > :15:00.One group of scientists are trying to find out, not just any
:15:01. > :15:07.scientists, NASA. They have just landed.
:15:08. > :15:13.The world toss leading space agency also spends a lot of time studying
:15:14. > :15:22.Earth, monitoring our planet's vital signs. Doctor Josh Willis is the
:15:23. > :15:25.lead scientist for a landmark Nasa study called OMG, oceans melting
:15:26. > :15:33.Greenland. This is our home for the next several weeks. Nasa's jet.
:15:34. > :15:39.Do you still get a thrill? Absolutely, it's an exciting place
:15:40. > :15:44.to be. They carry home astronauts on this. Goodness me! And now it is
:15:45. > :15:49.Josh. Nasa is air dropping sophisticated probes into the ocean
:15:50. > :15:53.to learn how quickly the sea is melting the ice sheet. Each one of
:15:54. > :15:58.these contained a sensor and an instrument package that can radio
:15:59. > :16:03.the data back to us. This is our tube. This is where we launch all of
:16:04. > :16:10.our probes. That is the toilet, which is where we sit when we launch
:16:11. > :16:15.our probes. I'll sit on the toilet. And this is a latch. We're able to
:16:16. > :16:24.drop the probe and they get sucked down the tube when you go. Oh, my
:16:25. > :16:30.goodness! Nasa let you cut a hole in, what is this, a Gulf Stream? A
:16:31. > :16:35.Gulf Stream three, that's right. And you put a bit of hype in there to
:16:36. > :16:42.send probes into the ocean. That's right, we will drop 250 probes into
:16:43. > :16:46.the ocean through this. Why does Greenland matter so much? We don't
:16:47. > :16:51.expect all of Greenland to melt in the next 100 years, but a big chunk
:16:52. > :16:55.of it is and we are yet to figure out how big a part of Greenland is
:16:56. > :17:02.going to melt and how much sea level rise we are in for. Are we already
:17:03. > :17:07.entering the time of consequences? We are definitely already seen the
:17:08. > :17:10.consequences of global warming. Sea levels have risen by around 21
:17:11. > :17:15.centimetres in the last 100 years and they are rising now at a faster
:17:16. > :17:20.rate than they were then. In fact, around three times faster than the
:17:21. > :17:24.weight 100 years ago. So the changes are happening and we are
:17:25. > :17:33.fundamentally changing the climate of the only planet we currently have
:17:34. > :17:36.and live on. Nasa says Earth is warming at an unprecedented pace.
:17:37. > :17:47.The agency has no doubt that our climate is changing. Reporting on
:17:48. > :17:51.14... The evidence gathered on this mission should give a clearer
:17:52. > :18:00.picture of how much damage that is doing to Greenland's colossal store
:18:01. > :18:05.of ice. Greenland's a place you can see in shocking close-up. The
:18:06. > :18:11.results, the consequences of climate change. Here, as much as anywhere on
:18:12. > :18:20.earth is the front line of our warming world. Look at this! An
:18:21. > :18:36.iceberg here. Can you see how blue that is? Look! Their's Iglesia! --
:18:37. > :18:41.glacier! Look at that! Look at that. What a site that is. Greenland is
:18:42. > :18:46.the Arctic at its most beautiful. But the melting now underway here is
:18:47. > :18:54.a warning of a future where the Arctic could affect us all. When you
:18:55. > :18:58.see melting glaciers, is normal, it has always happened, it should be
:18:59. > :19:02.happening now, but it is the rate at which it's happening now which is
:19:03. > :19:10.unnatural and worrying. This feels like I am witnessing the
:19:11. > :19:12.consequences of mankind's actions. And, if we warm our world too much,
:19:13. > :19:28.the ice sheet is going to melt away. I should really have set in that
:19:29. > :19:33.film that it's not just in Greenland where the glaciers are melting. It's
:19:34. > :19:38.across the Arctic. To discuss this, Arctic matters, I'm honoured to be
:19:39. > :19:42.joined by Professor David Barber. Hello, David. David is one of the
:19:43. > :19:47.world's leading experts on the Arctic. Thank you for coming. The
:19:48. > :19:53.world is warming and the Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as
:19:54. > :19:58.anywhere else. What is happening? All the ice is melting, so what is
:19:59. > :20:02.happening is, as the planet warms up, that warmth makes its way to the
:20:03. > :20:05.Arctic, it melts the ice, and that has a number of different things
:20:06. > :20:11.that happen in the system to cause it to warm up even more. How much
:20:12. > :20:16.are we losing? If you look at the northern hemisphere, the ice
:20:17. > :20:21.retreats in the summer and grows out in the winter. If you take that
:20:22. > :20:29.minimum amount that happens in the summer, we've lost about 60% of that
:20:30. > :20:35.in the last 30 years. 60%?! Yes, and we are on a trajectory that ice will
:20:36. > :20:39.disappear in the summer between 2030 and 2050. That's the first time that
:20:40. > :20:44.will have happened in the development of human civilisation on
:20:45. > :20:47.our planet. My goodness. Our significant for us is that? You are
:20:48. > :20:54.talking about something a little entry-level I can feel the hairs on
:20:55. > :20:58.my arm going up. It is important for everybody to understand this. When
:20:59. > :21:02.the Arctic changes, it affects things on the rest of the planet.
:21:03. > :21:08.Those changes are already happening. People are starting to feel the
:21:09. > :21:15.impact of this change in the Arctic as far away as the tropics. People
:21:16. > :21:21.think that ice is ice, but ice is a platform for life. Also, the sea ice
:21:22. > :21:24.in the Arctic is quite vital for regulating the climate of the world.
:21:25. > :21:31.It is like a refrigerator for the planet, is that right? That's right.
:21:32. > :21:36.Really, the world should be called the oceans, because it is an ocean
:21:37. > :21:40.planet. The big oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, they take the heat from
:21:41. > :21:42.the equator and move it to the poles, then it sinks down to the
:21:43. > :21:47.bottom and moves back to the equator. What happens in that
:21:48. > :21:52.context is that we are removing that heat from the centre of the planet,
:21:53. > :21:56.the equator, and taking it to the poles. At the Arctic warms up, we
:21:57. > :22:01.are less able to do that, to refrigerate the oceans. What is the
:22:02. > :22:08.albedo effect? You alluded to it earlier. The albedo effect. The
:22:09. > :22:13.simplest way to think about it is you have an Arctic Ocean which is
:22:14. > :22:18.black if there is no sea ice. If there is sea ice, it is white, so
:22:19. > :22:21.the ice reflects the energy back to space, so that energy can't do
:22:22. > :22:26.anything in the climate system. If you have a big ocean, all that
:22:27. > :22:30.energy goes into the surface and warms up the ocean, so you have to
:22:31. > :22:34.get rid of the heat before you can freeze the ice. That is what you can
:22:35. > :22:40.see in the background, with the waves on the estuary, trying to get
:22:41. > :22:45.rid of that. So, the more ice we lose, the more planet will heat up.
:22:46. > :22:50.Exactly. For now, back to the tundra.
:22:51. > :22:57.Boring stuff. So I am here with doctor Steve. You witnessing the ice
:22:58. > :23:01.receding in Alaska was the thing which drove you to persuade the US
:23:02. > :23:09.government to declare the polar bear a threatened species. If we see
:23:10. > :23:13.further decline in the ice, what hope for polar bears? One thing we
:23:14. > :23:19.have going for us is there are still lots of polar bears in the world,
:23:20. > :23:25.maybe 20,000-20 5000. If we stop the decline in sea ice soon, we will
:23:26. > :23:32.preserve a large number of them. But can we do that? Lots of scientists
:23:33. > :23:36.and managers have shown that we have the ability. They have drawn up
:23:37. > :23:43.papers and plans. These are the steps we need to take. We can do
:23:44. > :23:47.this. The important thing is to turn that physical possibility into a
:23:48. > :23:52.political plausibility. I was going to say, do you think there is the
:23:53. > :23:56.political will? Talk of climate change isn't new. It's been talked
:23:57. > :24:01.about for three, four decades. We've had many climate change conferences
:24:02. > :24:07.and yet this march to global warming seems unstoppable at the moment. Do
:24:08. > :24:13.you really believe that there is the political will to do the things that
:24:14. > :24:16.the scientists say we must? I am more optimistic now than I've been
:24:17. > :24:23.for a long time. The recent meetings in Paris, most of the nations of the
:24:24. > :24:27.world got together, 195 Nations, and agreed that we need to do this for
:24:28. > :24:32.the preservation of future generations, all of us, the animals
:24:33. > :24:36.we love and us. They recently ratified, partners in this agreement
:24:37. > :24:42.have ratified the agreement, and many more are coming online. Over
:24:43. > :24:46.one half of the CO2 emissions are accounted for in the agreement.
:24:47. > :24:52.There are still political hurdles, however. Danny, who is ten, is our
:24:53. > :25:00.next generation coming up. He has asked via the website whether the
:25:01. > :25:05.damage man has caused is reversible, or perhaps is it stoppable? You seem
:25:06. > :25:10.to think it is. I am confident that we have the ability, and I think we
:25:11. > :25:17.have the momentum going to stop the changes in time to save polar bears.
:25:18. > :25:21.What can we do as individuals? The most important thing people can do
:25:22. > :25:25.at this point is to encourage their policymakers, political leaders,
:25:26. > :25:30.mayors, congressmen, members of Parliament, that we need to take
:25:31. > :25:35.this seriously, if we care about future generations. They need to
:25:36. > :25:40.lead us now. Thank you, Steve. To remind us how special these bears
:25:41. > :25:45.are, we have got live pictures of them from the tundra. I will let you
:25:46. > :25:48.look at those while I tell you that there is another dramatic symptom of
:25:49. > :25:51.climate change occurring throughout the Arctic, and it is something that
:25:52. > :26:00.I discovered when I went to visit Alaska.
:26:01. > :26:07.It is summertime in the American Arctic and the world is green and
:26:08. > :26:12.full of life. The state of Alaska is the most northerly and by far the
:26:13. > :26:16.largest in the US. The Arctic Circle passes right through the middle of
:26:17. > :26:20.it, just to the north of the town of Fairbanks, where today I'm ditching
:26:21. > :26:27.the warmth to find out what lurks beneath. Seems mad to be putting on
:26:28. > :26:34.a huge coat. It is going to get a bit cold. Wow!
:26:35. > :26:45.Jessica is my guide. We are walking into the side of a mountain,
:26:46. > :26:52.basically, in the permafrost tunnel. There is probably 200 feet of soil
:26:53. > :26:57.and ice and trees above us. The tunnel was excavated by the US Army
:26:58. > :27:05.in the 1960s to research the hidden ice that holds much of the Arctic
:27:06. > :27:09.together. So what is the definition of permafrost? Permafrost is
:27:10. > :27:14.permanently frozen ground so, as long as that ground has been frozen
:27:15. > :27:20.for two years, you can label that permafrost. If I touched that, does
:27:21. > :27:29.it feel frozen? Is it hard? Oh, yes. Scrape away a little bit. Give it a
:27:30. > :27:33.bang. My goodness! It is cold. It may look like solid earth, but
:27:34. > :27:37.permafrost is largely made up of ice. It's like a frozen soil
:27:38. > :27:46.smoothie am a sparkling in the gloom. Can I just have a small
:27:47. > :27:54.moment of wonder? It is viewed. -- frozen soil smoothie, sparkling.
:27:55. > :27:59.This is the glue which holds much of the Arctic together, but it is under
:28:00. > :28:05.threat. We always thought permafrost would stay frozen for ever but, as
:28:06. > :28:09.our climate warms, we have warmer temperatures coming deeper so, in
:28:10. > :28:14.zones where we previously had nothing but solid ice under our
:28:15. > :28:17.feet, now our roads are crumbling, our houses are falling off their
:28:18. > :28:25.foundations because they were built on ice that has melted. Across the
:28:26. > :28:29.Arctic, infrastructure built on permafrost is collapsing. Huge
:28:30. > :28:40.sinkholes have appeared, like this one in Siberia. An Alaska's northern
:28:41. > :28:44.coast, more small lakes form where permafrost has subsided and, from
:28:45. > :28:51.above, the entire landscape looks like cases. At the northernmost tip,
:28:52. > :29:01.the town of Barrow sits on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. -- the entire
:29:02. > :29:05.landscape looks like a sieve. There has been a roaming community here
:29:06. > :29:10.for a long time but the future of the town long term is now in doubt.
:29:11. > :29:14.Harry is offered to show me the scale of the problem. Look at this!
:29:15. > :29:22.Starting with a look at the ice seller where he once stored his
:29:23. > :29:34.whale meat. Wow! This seller is 40 feet deep. My goodness! My
:29:35. > :29:40.grandfather and his crews. They were dipping into frozen ground. Yes. It
:29:41. > :29:46.is important to store food in these cellars through the summer for later
:29:47. > :29:51.use. A cellar like this, dug into the permafrost, was once a reliable
:29:52. > :29:57.place to keep meat frozen, but that is not true now. When I was a young
:29:58. > :30:04.boy, permafrost melted in the summer to about two and a half, three feet.
:30:05. > :30:10.Now it goes down 25, 30 feet. Will you use this? Not this cellar, I
:30:11. > :30:13.have a different ice cellar. It is dangerous now. These walls are
:30:14. > :30:19.caving in but this is just an indication of a much bigger problem.
:30:20. > :30:25.Melting permafrost threatens the foundations of this entire coastal
:30:26. > :30:32.community. When I was a young boy, this bluff used to be ending right
:30:33. > :30:41.at the water's H. So all of that land is all gone? It eroded away. In
:30:42. > :30:47.your lifetime? Yes. It's been a big change, even in five to ten years.
:30:48. > :30:54.There were homes that have been moved, at least 200 feet inland. 200
:30:55. > :31:01.feet inland, and now they are, what, ten, 20 feet inland? As the ocean
:31:02. > :31:04.eats away at the weakened cliffs, these houses will need to be moved
:31:05. > :31:08.still further inland, which is no easy task.
:31:09. > :31:16.The old housing stock is built on stilts, drilled directly into the
:31:17. > :31:24.permafrost, transmitting yet more warmth into the once solid ground.
:31:25. > :31:28.But Andrew, from the local housing authority, is working on a new home
:31:29. > :31:35.to solve these problems. It's not hard to spot. Wow, what a colour!
:31:36. > :31:40.Don't you love it It makes you feel warm looking at it It does. How does
:31:41. > :31:45.this one work? One of the best things about this house there is no
:31:46. > :31:50.penetration or direct connection to this. This is sitting on insulation.
:31:51. > :31:54.That's really clever. Any heat that escapes from the house won't go down
:31:55. > :31:59.into the permafrost? You've got it. In a place where the ground can
:32:00. > :32:07.become unstable over night, another innovation could save a lot of
:32:08. > :32:14.trouble. You put it on a sled. What? You are like a mad professor! It is
:32:15. > :32:19.literally on a sled. It's on a sled. You pick it up, you pull the pads
:32:20. > :32:24.away. Yeah. You drop it down, you move it where you want to. So if
:32:25. > :32:28.somebody has a home on the coast that is suffering from coastal
:32:29. > :32:32.erosion, like so many of the houses in Barrow have, all they need to do
:32:33. > :32:40.is pull the house back to another spot? Relocate. That's very clever
:32:41. > :32:42.indeed. Do they all have to come in yellow though? It can come in any
:32:43. > :32:52.colour you want it to! LAUGHTER. These skiing homes could soon be a
:32:53. > :32:59.common sight across Barrow. Several are already in use in the village of
:33:00. > :33:05.Wainwright, just down the coast. As the land softens and is eaten away
:33:06. > :33:11.by the ocean, being mobile could help these communities to adopt and
:33:12. > :33:18.survive. But the real tragedy is that now it's underway the loss of
:33:19. > :33:22.permafrost seems irreversible. Our climate is too warm now to make ice,
:33:23. > :33:26.ground ice any more. It's what we would call a tipping point, when the
:33:27. > :33:32.permafrost melts. Once you have gone over that edge, you can't come back.
:33:33. > :33:40.We would never get it back? Right. Not in our lifetime, not in our kids
:33:41. > :33:44.or grandkids lifetimes either. It sounds quite apolyp particular? It
:33:45. > :33:53.can sound that way. This is the frontline of climate change. David
:33:54. > :33:58.as if it wasn't bad enough that the permafrost is melting and houses are
:33:59. > :34:02.cracking and roads, tell us about methane? Well, the problem we are
:34:03. > :34:07.into right now is because of greenhouse gases. People are aware
:34:08. > :34:11.of that now. This reliance of fossil fuels are putting carbon dioxide in
:34:12. > :34:16.the air. Another big one is methane. It's tied up in the permafrost you
:34:17. > :34:19.see around here in the Hudson Bay lowlands and the Arctic and these
:34:20. > :34:23.low land areas and the ocean, the ocean floor. A natural gas and a
:34:24. > :34:30.greenhouse gas? A potent greenhouse gas. Efficient of trapping heat in
:34:31. > :34:36.against the planet. Adding that to the CO2 in the atmosphere makes the
:34:37. > :34:39.problem worse. OK. Tell us about feedback loops. Don't you switch
:34:40. > :34:44.off. It's very important. We will explain. What is a feedback loop? We
:34:45. > :34:48.use it in a scientific literature when we are talking about how a
:34:49. > :34:51.system works. What you do is you add something and that causes a response
:34:52. > :34:57.of some kind. That response creates more of that thing, it goes back in
:34:58. > :35:02.the system which creates more again. The cycle continues and you get a
:35:03. > :35:06.feedback loop. The more we heat the world, more methane is released into
:35:07. > :35:11.the permafrost into the atmosphere, heats the world more, melting more
:35:12. > :35:15.permafrost and releasing the Met Thane? We are at the point where the
:35:16. > :35:21.feedback loops are becoming popular in our climate system, particularly
:35:22. > :35:25.in the Arctic because the Arctic has this very subtle transition between
:35:26. > :35:30.when something is frozen and thawed. People will say, it looks cold where
:35:31. > :35:35.you are, what is there to worry about? It's warmer than it should
:35:36. > :35:38.be. The ocean behind us is open. The rivers are open still. Lakes are
:35:39. > :35:42.starting to freeze. These changes going on in the Arctic are already
:35:43. > :35:45.here. We are already seeing them. It doesn't just affect the Arctic, it
:35:46. > :35:49.affects the rest of the planet as well. People are seeing this weird
:35:50. > :35:54.weather going down in southern latitudes. This problem is already
:35:55. > :35:56.here. OK. Thank you very much indeed, David.
:35:57. > :36:02.We are in a time of consequences, I think you are saying. We will go
:36:03. > :36:06.back to the tundra. We go back to Gordon Thank you, Simon. It's a good
:36:07. > :36:12.day to talk about other bear behaviour we have seen or bear
:36:13. > :36:19.behaviour we have seen in recent days I'm joined by Professor Andrew
:36:20. > :36:27.Rosha. That bear lift his head. You recognised him it could be Van Gogh.
:36:28. > :36:32.Yes. They come back to the same spots year after year. He is a
:36:33. > :36:35.mature male. He probably lost that by not paying enough attention when
:36:36. > :36:40.he was fighting. That would be during the springtime during a
:36:41. > :36:44.mating event. Which they of polar bears being solitary hunters, this
:36:45. > :36:47.is the one niem their life cycle, their year, they can interact with
:36:48. > :36:57.each other. We have footage we got two-days ago, I shot it of two bears
:36:58. > :37:02.sparring? This is typical behaviour for young males. They are practicing
:37:03. > :37:09.their fighting skills. They are about the same size. That is
:37:10. > :37:13.typical. Like kids. They wrestle with somebody of their same age and
:37:14. > :37:16.size and practicing when it matters. Nothing to fight about at this time
:37:17. > :37:21.of year, no breeding activity, no food. It's, working on your skills
:37:22. > :37:24.and maybe, just maybe, you will meet this bear another time you will know
:37:25. > :37:29.just how good a fighter he is and whether or not it's worth a scrap.
:37:30. > :37:36.It seems to be a balance of power here. Those two young bears
:37:37. > :37:42.disappeared when a big fella showed over the horizon. There has been a
:37:43. > :37:46.scarcity of females with cubs. One of our cameramen filmed a female
:37:47. > :37:52.with cubs in this area. Fantastic to see. They were lying in the snow. No
:37:53. > :37:55.problems at all. Not worried about anything. She sensed something and
:37:56. > :38:02.she had obviously smelt another bear. Her head comes up. She spots
:38:03. > :38:06.this fella. Huge, big bear. I don't know if at this point she had seen
:38:07. > :38:10.him, she got higher up. She seemed to be able to sense there was
:38:11. > :38:14.something not quite right. Then I think she saw him and move out of
:38:15. > :38:19.there. Got her kids up and started walking. I think it just kicked in,
:38:20. > :38:25.the fear factor kicked in, she started to run. There is good reason
:38:26. > :38:28.for that, isn't there? Exactly. Most of the females with cubs are far
:38:29. > :38:34.inland at this time of year. They come to the coast very sparingly.
:38:35. > :38:37.The reason is, this is sort of the primary real estate for bears. The
:38:38. > :38:43.big males are here. It's a dangerous place for her to be. OK. There is
:38:44. > :38:48.time for a very quick question and quick answer. Kieran asks - how fast
:38:49. > :38:53.with cup of those polar bears run? A lots faster than you. Number one,
:38:54. > :39:00.they can get up to 20mph. If you are a big, fat, male, you are not moving
:39:01. > :39:04.that fast. Usain Bolt, 20mph. Earlier in the year Kate went to
:39:05. > :39:08.Sweden to find out how some recent changes in the Arctic are affecting
:39:09. > :39:30.some ancient ways of life. These are the lands of the Sami
:39:31. > :39:34.people, some of whom still herd reindeer for a living.let Sami
:39:35. > :39:37.territory stretches right across northern Scandinavia and into
:39:38. > :39:43.Russia. The march of developments in the Arctic means they are not alone.
:39:44. > :39:50.Nearly 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle lies the town of Kiruna.
:39:51. > :39:57.Kiruna is home to the largest underground iron oar mine in the
:39:58. > :40:02.world. They are mining 80,000 tonnes out of this mine every day. Wow. A
:40:03. > :40:08.lot from here goes mostly to Europe. We have 90% of the market. 90%? Yes.
:40:09. > :40:13.We are the biggest supplier in the European Union. That is
:40:14. > :40:17.extraordinary. The mine is enormous and the resulting scars across the
:40:18. > :40:23.landscape have dominated this area for generations. It was first found
:40:24. > :40:28.in the 16th century and we started to mine large scale in the 1920s. My
:40:29. > :40:37.grandfather, he worked here his whole life as a driller. Iron oar
:40:38. > :40:45.was exstrablthed from open cast pits blasted into two small mountains. --
:40:46. > :40:52.extracted. When it ran out in the 1960s they went underground. Above
:40:53. > :41:00.ground infrastructure to support the mine has expanded, too. Like much of
:41:01. > :41:04.the Arctic, the extraction. Resources has accelerated rapidly in
:41:05. > :41:11.northern Sweden, but not everyone has benefitted. I'm heading to a
:41:12. > :41:18.community north. The people here also make a living from the land,
:41:19. > :41:26.but in a very different way. Oh, my goodness. LAUGHTER. Just ahead of me
:41:27. > :41:30.here, there's the most magnificent herd of reindeer, just running
:41:31. > :41:39.across the snow here. Look at that! That's just magnificent. They are
:41:40. > :41:42.incredibly agile, perfectly, perfectly evolved for this
:41:43. > :41:51.landscape. That's the most wonderful sight. The reindeer on these
:41:52. > :42:01.mountains belong to a Sami community who spend the summer in a small
:42:02. > :42:09.cluster of cabins on the lakeshore. Hi. I'm Kate. Hi. Lovely to meet
:42:10. > :42:18.you. Nice to meet you too. What an amazing place? I know. It's
:42:19. > :42:25.beautiful. Today my guide as offered to show me around. Why come up here
:42:26. > :42:35.every summer? Is it to have a nice summer holiday? No. It's a working
:42:36. > :42:39.place. The reindeer have the best pasture, best for the calves and the
:42:40. > :42:44.mums to get the best milk for their babies. The reindeer are bred for
:42:45. > :42:52.their meat which is popular in Scandinavia. They can travel over
:42:53. > :42:57.1,000 miles a year in search of the best grazing. The herds move between
:42:58. > :43:01.lush upland pasture in the summer and sheltered lowlands in the
:43:02. > :43:10.winter. For hundreds of years, the Sami have moved with them. But for
:43:11. > :43:16.this herd, the mine lies directly on their route. When they migrated down
:43:17. > :43:20.to the winter pasture or up to the summer pasture they went exactly
:43:21. > :43:25.where the town is right now. Now there is a town there and a very
:43:26. > :43:33.substantial mine, what have you lost? We have lost pasture land. We
:43:34. > :43:37.have lost migration land. We have been forced to move our migration
:43:38. > :43:41.paths several times Is that a problem? It's a problem because the
:43:42. > :43:47.reindeer has in its mind how it goes. The reindeer have a map.
:43:48. > :43:54.Right. When you put a city, a mine or a road on that migrating trail,
:43:55. > :44:01.you kind of mess up the reindeer's way of moving and they get lost.
:44:02. > :44:06.Roads and railways cut across ancient migration routes. While the
:44:07. > :44:13.mine has built bridges for the animals, they still stray onto the
:44:14. > :44:20.tracks. Last year we had 56 reindeer killed by the train. It's kind of a
:44:21. > :44:23.bloody mess. What have you gained from the mine and the town? Do you
:44:24. > :44:30.get any income from it? It gives compensation. We have some kind of
:44:31. > :44:39.agreement nowadays. Reindeer can't eat money and people can't eat
:44:40. > :44:45.money, you no know. -- you know. We want the land, we don't want the
:44:46. > :44:48.money, you know. As the community fights its corner, life continues
:44:49. > :44:56.and this year's calves must be counted and marked.
:44:57. > :44:59.It's midsummer here and the Arctic sun only dips briefly below
:45:00. > :45:05.But the drop in temperature is the Sami's chance to tempt
:45:06. > :45:28.You've got a helicopter that's working almost like a giant sheepdog
:45:29. > :45:31.and in partnership with the guys on motorbikes and quadbikes
:45:32. > :45:34.and they're driving this river of reindeer over this incredibly
:45:35. > :45:43.rough terrain, and it's just the most beautiful sight.
:45:44. > :45:46.There are only around 20,000 Sami left in Sweden and just a small
:45:47. > :45:54.So there's a determination to preserve this way of life
:45:55. > :46:00.which is so integral to Sami culture.
:46:01. > :46:02.The reindeer have now been funnelled into the corral,
:46:03. > :46:09.it's the most fantastic sort of co-ordinated community effort.
:46:10. > :46:12.Each Sami family has its own reindeer, so they round up any
:46:13. > :46:18.new calves and tag them by marking their ears.
:46:19. > :46:22.I get the feeling that this is a day of excitement, but mixed
:46:23. > :46:29.These reindeer, although they're domesticated, although they all
:46:30. > :46:33.belong to families, live very much as wild animals,
:46:34. > :46:37.so today is a big reveal for this community.
:46:38. > :46:40.How many calves have they had over calving season?
:46:41. > :46:48.All that will then give them some sense of what their income
:46:49. > :47:09.In the face of continued development of their ancestral lands, the Sami
:47:10. > :47:11.are battling to hang their traditional herding lifestyle,
:47:12. > :47:21.hoping that seems like this will remain an intrinsic part of the
:47:22. > :47:24.future of the Swedish Arctic. Absolutely beautiful part of the
:47:25. > :47:31.world, that. I'm in an equally beautiful part of the world. In
:47:32. > :47:37.Sweden, it was the mine disrupting the migratory route of the reindeer.
:47:38. > :47:40.There, it appears that Churchill is disrupting, if not the migratory
:47:41. > :47:44.route, the route that the polar bears use to the ice, and we've got
:47:45. > :47:51.some pretty shocking footage from 1982 of bears foraging on the town
:47:52. > :47:56.dump. Not a nice thing for anybody to look at. Were they there because
:47:57. > :48:01.it was directly on their route, or will they rusher or work they pulled
:48:02. > :48:06.off their route by the smell of rubbish? I think the major influence
:48:07. > :48:12.is the smell of something they think is good. That presumably isn't
:48:13. > :48:17.healthy for the bears, not just eating rubbish, but is it a
:48:18. > :48:21.behaviour that gets passed down generations? It is the mother bears
:48:22. > :48:27.that teach the young bears the route to the ice. That's right. These
:48:28. > :48:31.animals live a long time, they remember events in their past and,
:48:32. > :48:36.if they are good, they pass them on. If they find food or even the smell
:48:37. > :48:40.of food, it's likely their offspring will be there as well. Churchill has
:48:41. > :48:45.addressed this problem and rubbish is dealt with in a different way,
:48:46. > :48:51.but Gordon last week filmed this very skinny looking female polar
:48:52. > :48:55.bear with her cub desperately looking around the Wii cycling
:48:56. > :49:02.centre. Is that learned behaviour? Did she possibly learn it from her
:49:03. > :49:07.mother? -- recycling centre. I would bet that is probably the case.
:49:08. > :49:13.Churchill has a problem with conflict with polar bears. Is that
:49:14. > :49:17.unique? Churchill maybe has the lead in addressing this is a problem, but
:49:18. > :49:22.it is happening all over the Arctic and it will only happen more as we
:49:23. > :49:26.have less and less sea ice, hungry bears and more humans in the Arctic,
:49:27. > :49:32.in the places that used to be the sole domain of the polar bear. Thank
:49:33. > :49:34.you, Steve. Let's go back to a film Simon made in a country making the
:49:35. > :49:41.most of climate change. I'm travelling through a part
:49:42. > :49:44.of the Russian Arctic that, just 25 years ago, was off
:49:45. > :49:47.limits to Westerners. After crossing the border
:49:48. > :49:49.with Norway by road, I'm heading along the Kola Peninsula
:49:50. > :49:52.and towards the Arctic There's been a huge military
:49:53. > :50:00.presence here since the Cold War, when this area was a key frontier
:50:01. > :50:07.between East and West. We've turned off the main road
:50:08. > :50:10.and we're heading to a top secret military base,
:50:11. > :50:12.or at least it used I'm meeting up with military
:50:13. > :50:27.expert, Mark Protasov. Ah...
:50:28. > :51:13.This is huge. In the high Arctic we are inside
:51:14. > :51:27.what's thought to be an abandoned Thank God the warheads
:51:28. > :51:45.from here were never fired in anger. This is a scary sign
:51:46. > :51:49.to see, look. Apparently, this place has been
:51:50. > :51:52.checked out and is now safe, but I don't really think I've ever
:51:53. > :51:59.been anywhere quite like this. The warheads here probably
:52:00. > :52:01.supplied the submarine fleet But, with the reduction
:52:02. > :52:07.of nuclear stockpiles, It's quite astonishing
:52:08. > :52:14.to be here, really. When I was a lad, this was the enemy
:52:15. > :52:18.base when the Soviet Union was a super power and so much
:52:19. > :52:25.of its military might was concentrated and focused
:52:26. > :52:31.up here in the Arctic. Then, of course, the Soviet Union
:52:32. > :52:33.collapsed, here it's And, again, the Arctic is becoming
:52:34. > :52:40.a focus of attention - economically, I head east through miles
:52:41. > :52:53.of endless Arctic tundra, until suddenly there was a dramatic
:52:54. > :53:06.change in scenery. This is a full size city
:53:07. > :53:19.inside the Arctic Circle. With 300,000 people,
:53:20. > :53:23.it's the biggest city It's also one of Russia's key ports
:53:24. > :53:29.because the warm currents of the Gulf Stream keep the water
:53:30. > :53:34.here ice-free all year round. An extraordinary memorial looks West
:53:35. > :53:37.to mark the Red Army's heroic stand against the Germans
:53:38. > :53:41.during the Second World War. Now the melting Arctic means
:53:42. > :53:45.Russians, like Sergei Balmasov, are eyeing a lucrative trade route
:53:46. > :54:10.to the East. The northern sea route
:54:11. > :54:13.is along the top of Russia, It enables a ship to travel more
:54:14. > :54:21.directly from China to Europe, cutting up to a fortnight
:54:22. > :54:26.of existing routes. It's rapidly becoming a reality
:54:27. > :54:29.as the sea ice thins and melts. Russia sees new opportunities
:54:30. > :54:59.in the Arctic. The Russian Arctic won't be ice-free
:55:00. > :55:02.immediately and as the pack ice melts there will still be
:55:03. > :55:08.icebergs floating around. So anyone using Arctic shipping
:55:09. > :55:10.routes will need icebreakers, and the biggest of
:55:11. > :55:16.those are all Russian. Captain Andre Martinoff
:55:17. > :55:23.is my guide to the Lenin. I'll follow you, you go first,
:55:24. > :55:28.you're the captain. Built in the 1950s, this
:55:29. > :55:30.was the world's first It was so efficient,
:55:31. > :55:39.it could break ice for a whole day on just a matchbox size
:55:40. > :55:43.piece of uranium. Did people worry about working
:55:44. > :55:51.on nuclear ships as opposed The Russians have steadily built up
:55:52. > :56:13.a huge icebreaker fleet, leaving It's thought Russia now has more
:56:14. > :56:18.than 40 icebreakers, many of What's it like to be up
:56:19. > :56:23.here on the bridge when they're Russia is committing vast resources
:56:24. > :56:53.to conquering the frozen North. More than any other country,
:56:54. > :56:55.it has the ability to create shipping lanes and exploit
:56:56. > :57:01.the melting Arctic. People can talk as much
:57:02. > :57:04.as they like about who owns the Arctic in theory,
:57:05. > :57:06.but the reality, up here in the frozen North,
:57:07. > :57:11.is that while the United States has just a couple of working
:57:12. > :57:19.icebreakers, Russia has dozens, and that makes Russia the real
:57:20. > :57:35.power in the Arctic. I just wanted to show you this
:57:36. > :57:39.place. It's rather atmospheric. It's very strange for me to have been in
:57:40. > :57:45.a bustling city of Murmansk in Russia a couple of months ago, and
:57:46. > :57:50.now to be here in the Canadian Arctic, in sleepy Churchill. Canada
:57:51. > :57:55.is an Arctic country, of course, but this, this is Canada's only real
:57:56. > :58:01.deepwater Arctic Seaport, on a coastline of more than 100,000
:58:02. > :58:07.miles. It used to bring -- they used to bring grain in here on these
:58:08. > :58:11.train tracks from the prairies in the south, but they have stopped
:58:12. > :58:14.that recently and it looks like this place is being mothballed. So many
:58:15. > :58:19.people around the world are talking about how the Arctic is up for
:58:20. > :58:23.grabs, how it is strategically important, and you saw in the film
:58:24. > :58:27.how Russia is committing huge resources to owning the Arctic. I
:58:28. > :58:30.would suggest other countries are getting left in. That's it from me.
:58:31. > :58:37.Back to the tundra. Can you believe it? Just as we are
:58:38. > :58:40.about to go off air, the two polar bears are starting to move around. I
:58:41. > :58:46.guarantee tomorrow it will be really cold.
:58:47. > :58:52.Thanks, Gordon. Amazing sites, these bears. I'm going to leave you with
:58:53. > :58:55.those and tell you that, tomorrow, Simon comes face-to-face with
:58:56. > :59:00.monsters of the deep, Gordon discovers how troublesome bears get
:59:01. > :59:04.evicted from town, and I go to a community of extraordinary artists.
:59:05. > :59:10.Tom Harris, is six-year-old, said, what is ice? He said, frozen water.
:59:11. > :59:38.No, dad, it's a platform for life. Good night.
:59:39. > :59:40.ROLLER-COASTER NOISE, PEOPLE SCREAMING
:59:41. > :59:48.ROLLER-COASTER NOISE, PEOPLE SCREAMING
:59:49. > :59:52.They also love supporting BBC Children In Need.