Acid Oceans • Director | Producer
Since the beginning of the industrial age the ocean has been absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the air. The increase in carbon dioxide has made the ocean’s pH more acidic. Biologists are realizing that this change is hampering the development of hard-shelled marine creatures, leaving them more vulnerable to environmental stressors. To learn more, researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara recreated an acidic ocean in a lab and is testing how the change affects sea urchins.
Santa Barbara, CA
The Ecology of Climate Change • Director | Producer
The vast boreal forest just south of the Arctic Circle is a key region for studying climate change--both impacts of it and contributions to it. Trees and permafrost are vast reservoirs of carbon. Watch ecologists conduct experiments in Alaska's forest that aim to unravel the complex feedbacks among plants, permafrost, and climate so scientists can better predict the future of our warming planet.
Fairbanks, AK
Archived in Ice • Director | Producer
Follow scientist-adventurer Lonnie Thompson to the 5,670-meter-high Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes. Thompson and his team from Ohio State University are racing to core a cylinder of 1,500-year-old ice to unravel the past climate patterns of this region - before our gradually warming climate melts this invaluable record away. By analyzing global ice cores, glaciologists like Thompson now have a well-preserved record for 150,000 years of climate history, allowing us to better predict future climate change.
Andes Mountains, Peru
Melting Ice, Rising Seas • Director | Producer
The rising temperatures of global climate change are melting the world's ice. Most notable are the shrinking ice sheets of Greenland and west Antarctica, which have shown dramatic loss in recent years. Travel to the glaciers of Greenland and to fossilized coral reefs of the Florida Keys, where earth scientists are studying geologic records of past warming to predict future ice loss and associated sea level rise.
Summit Camp, Greenland and Key West, FL