FROZEN EARTH WITH DAVID ATTENBOROUGH.

TUESDAY 13^th DECEMBER 2011.

Over the last few weeks I have been watching the BBC1 programme called “Frozen Earth ” with David Attenborough; it has been spectacular as they travelled to both ends of the world to capture life in the frozen wilderness, Attenborough and the BBC at its best. This weeks episode was on the global changes taking place and the effect that they are having in the Arctic and Antarctic continents; the pictures were spectacular as he set the scene for the programme,the sheer size especially down in Antarctica are mind blowing. The American submarine braking through the ice cap by the North Pole was unbelievable, years ago the ice was 50 meters thick but it is now down to 5 meters in places ! This was shown when the place where Attenborough standing by the North Pole was on the following day a 10 meter wide gap and started to swallow up the encampment ! There was also some spectacular film of the Glaciers and Ice Shelf’s braking up as the sea warms up.

It then travelled down to Antarctica and this is were the sheer size of the continent takes your breath away; David Attenborough could only just speak at the South Pole outside the tent due to the thin air, like on a mountain, at places the ice is 200 meters thick. The details of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17 led by Sir Ernest Shackleton were fascinating; it really got interesting when his ship the ‘ Endurance ’ was trapped in the ice pack in the Waddle Sea and finally was crushed and sank beneath the surface on the 21^ST November 1915.All his men camped out on the ice flows and finally they had to take to the lifeboats and made land 346 miles from where the Endurance sank, after 497 days on Elephant Island ! This was just the start !

He then set off to get help with five chosen crew members across 800 miles of the Antarctic Ocean to the island of South Georgia, it took 15 days in the lifeboat ‘ James Caird ’ and when they arrived he then walked across the island to the whaling station 32 miles away ! All his crew survived to tell the tail !!The picture below and above show some remarkable shots at the time back in 1915- Attenborough then took the same shots of the Glaciers 94 years later !!

The last few pictures are of more of the changes that are taking place; the ‘ Wilkins Ice Shelf ’which is the size of Yorkshire and is over 200 meters thick, it is starting to brake up for the first time, the rivers and waterfalls in the far North of Canada are now unfreezing a lot earlier. If you get the chance watch the programme !!

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