Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00They cover two-thirds of our planet.
00:07They hold clues to the mysteries of our past.
00:12And they're vital for our future survival.
00:18But the secrets of our oceans have remained largely undiscovered.
00:23I win! I think so, yes!
00:26Yes! Yes!
00:29Explorer Paul Rose is leading a team of ocean experts on a series of underwater science expeditions.
00:37For a year, the team has voyaged across the world to build up a global picture of our seas.
00:44We are doing some pretty uncharted research here.
00:47That is psychedelically awful!
00:49We're here to try and understand the Earth's oceans and put them in a human scale.
00:57Our oceans are changing faster than ever.
01:00I've never seen ice like this before!
01:04There's never been a better time to explore the last true wilderness on Earth.
01:20This expedition will explore one of the most hostile bodies of water on the planet.
01:28The icy wastes of the Arctic Ocean.
01:34The water temperature hovers around zero.
01:38About two million square miles of the ocean's surface is permanently frozen.
01:49That's much colder ice, much firmer. You can break it off.
01:52This is serious.
01:54Yeah, this is much better.
01:55Like massive chunks breaking off.
01:58This is one of the least explored oceans on Earth.
02:04It's barely a century since the first ships penetrated this ice-covered world.
02:10The Arctic Ocean spans the North Pole.
02:14It's the smallest and shallowest of the five Great Oceans.
02:19But more than any other, it plays a vital role in regulating our climate.
02:26Only now, global warming is changing this region dramatically.
02:31It's not just global warming.
02:33Only now, global warming is changing this region dramatically.
02:38It's heating up twice as fast as anywhere else on Earth.
02:45I think we're in a race with the Arctic Ocean.
02:48It's changing fast, so we need to learn and understand what's going on while we can.
02:52Because within our lifetimes it's going to be unrecognisable.
02:55The team has come to see what these changes will mean for life here, and how they could affect us all.
03:02The team has come to see what these changes will mean for life here, and how they could affect us all.
03:10Marine biologist and oceanographer Tuni Mato dives beneath the polar ice cap
03:17to reveal why it's vital to the health of our world.
03:21We're kind of all completely dependent on this stuff to keep the planet cool.
03:30Maritime archaeologist Dr Lucy Blue examines how man has exploited this ocean for hundreds of years.
03:39It was diving and it had blood, you know, it was bleeding, it was pulling boats.
03:43I mean, it must have been absolutely horrendous.
03:47And environmentalist Philippe Cousteau, grandson of ocean pioneer Jacques Cousteau,
03:53investigates how the Arctic's uniquely adapted marine life is under threat.
04:00These rely on the ice. I mean, without the ice, these can't exist.
04:10Ice is the Arctic Ocean's dominant feature.
04:13The way the ice forms and melts and changes and circulates around,
04:16it governs the Arctic Ocean and it defines the Arctic Ocean.
04:20This ice is vital to help stop the Earth overheating.
04:25Up to 80% of the sunlight that hits the bright white surface is reflected back into space.
04:33But climate change means the Arctic ice cap is shrinking.
04:37In the last 30 years, almost one and a half million square miles of ice has disappeared.
04:44It's a major topic of concern, what's happening here.
04:48You know, the ice melting and the implications that has for the rest of the world.
04:54Understanding why and how fast the ice is melting is crucial.
04:59But as getting here is so challenging, it's not easy.
05:03The ocean's team will be one of relatively few specialised expeditions.
05:07Not only to study the ice from the surface, but to dive beneath it.
05:12Most people's experience of the Arctic sea ice would be remotely.
05:16You know, scientists with remote sensing, you know, satellite imagery, computer models and all that.
05:21So even the best scientists in the world who are studying Arctic sea ice
05:27often wouldn't get the chance to come to this remote location and go diving underneath it.
05:41The team heads north, towards the ice cap.
05:46It's a long way north. 78 north here, 80 north, approximately there.
05:51And the mainland Norway, you know, way down here to the south.
05:57And our plan is to head directly north.
05:59When we hit the ice here, we'll be working through the ice.
06:03We'll be working through the ice.
06:05We'll be working through the ice.
06:07We'll be working through the ice.
06:09We'll be working through the ice.
06:12When we hit the ice here, we'll be working through the whole pack.
06:16We want that very cold water, minus one or something at least.
06:20It will be some of the most extreme sites in the world to do, you know, oceanography, do science, do diving, do air studies.
06:28The ice has that incredible power, you know, so it can be calm where we are.
06:32But that pack is just moving and pushing and grinding with incredible forces.
06:36It's one of the ultimate extreme environments.
06:40This far north, the tilt of the Earth's axis means that for four months of the year, the sun never sets.
06:53They use the 24-hour daylight to force their way into the polar pack.
07:09We've got about 20 nautical miles left.
07:11So it's quite a way. It's going to take us a while.
07:13Especially with ice like this.
07:15It's gradually going to get tighter and gradually going to get thicker.
07:19The North Pole
07:33After eight hours, expedition leader Paul thinks they've penetrated far enough to start their exploration.
07:41We're at 80 degrees, 14 minutes, so it's, you know, 600 and something miles from the North Pole.
07:47It's a nice feeling, isn't it?
07:50This huge mass of ice is floating on the ocean's surface and can drift several miles a day.
08:00The boat must be anchored to it, so they move together.
08:07As global warming raises the air temperature, the surface of the ice melts.
08:13But this alone may not account for the amount of ice we know is being lost.
08:23So Paul and Toony are going to dive beneath the polar cap to see what else might be causing this ice cover to shrink.
08:34First thing we want to do is get under there and find out if there's any evidence of how it's formed.
08:40Are there features that we can look at, if there's any evidence or any signs of melting?
08:45And just really get underneath and actually see the ice for what it is from a different perspective.
08:49Looking up rather than looking down on it.
09:06Let's head under the ice.
09:11Look, it's very, very dark here.
09:16It's one of the darkest it's been since I've been here, in this land of 24-hour daylight.
09:26Unlike icebergs, which come from freshwater glaciers, this pack ice forms when it gets so cold that the ice melts.
09:35The ice only forms at minus 1.8 degrees centigrade because of all the salt in the water.
09:44So the ice is formed from these tiny, tiny crystals.
09:48It kind of forms into this huge mass of ice.
09:53And it's a very, very cold ice.
09:56So the ice is formed from these tiny, tiny crystals.
10:01It kind of forms into this huge mass of ice.
10:06This sea ice can grow as much as three metres thick.
10:14The shapes underneath reveal how different pieces drift together to become a vast ice sheet.
10:21Well, you can see, this has been formed by these huge sea ice flows just pushing together.
10:30It's a bit like plate tectonics, you know, when great geological plates slide together and form mountains.
10:36Well, these things slide together and form great ridges above.
10:40And along with it, these fabulous keels down below.
10:43And along with it, these fabulous keels down below.
10:49Keels can extend down to 40 metres.
10:52They help stabilise the ice flows and stop strong winds from breaking them up.
10:58But there are signs that the keels are also shrinking, causing ice flows to break up more easily and melt even faster.
11:07Hey, Tony. You see these features here, Tony? This is where it's melting.
11:15As it does, the underside of the ice develops a series of depressions and ridges.
11:26These are characteristic signs that the ice is melting underneath as well as on top.
11:31As ice cover decreases in the summer, the dark ocean absorbs more heat from the sun.
11:37The water warms up and begins to melt the underside of the ice.
11:44It's all our bubbles hitting the ceiling. It's just finding all the little pockets, isn't it?
11:49And then you stick your hand up, look, and you lose your hand.
11:52Some of this melting is seasonal. What's changing now is how much ice is disappearing.
12:01The whole of the Arctic ice cap is shrinking.
12:07And it's a... it's a bad thing.
12:12The ice is melting, and it's... it's a bad thing.
12:16And it's a difficult thought to have when you're in minus-one-degree centigrade water
12:28and surrounded by ice.
12:40This shrinking is so important, it's being monitored by scientists around the world using
12:45satellites.
12:49But there are relatively few direct measurements.
12:53So Philippe and Lucie plan to head out onto the ice to measure its thickness.
13:05The thickness will indicate whether this ice is likely to survive the summer.
13:11The measurements they take will be sent to NASA.
13:14For a few decades now, NASA's been using satellite technology to track changes in the Arctic.
13:21Changes in the area covered by ice and the thickness of the ice.
13:24But they need the truth to verify that data, the information on the ground.
13:29So that's what we're doing.
13:30We'll be sending this straight to them.
13:31Only ice over two meters thick is likely to make it through the summer.
13:53To measure the thickness, Philippe and Lucie need to drill right through the ice.
14:00We've essentially got to measure the depth of the hole that we've just drilled.
14:13And this, if we lower this down, hopefully the bar will catch on the other side of the
14:20ice.
14:22Metal bar's horizontal, so it's sitting against the bottom of the ice.
14:25I think we got it.
14:26So it's locked up.
14:27So that's the depth.
14:28Right.
14:29I can't feel it.
14:30One, yeah.
14:31So it's one meter.
14:32And then the middle of this thing to that point is 65.
14:37So we've got one meter, 65.
14:41That's relatively thin and more likely to melt over the summer months.
14:47But one measurement is not enough.
14:51They need to drill several holes to take an average.
14:53I think that's it.
14:54So that's one meter.
14:55One meter, 76?
14:56Yeah.
14:57So that's 1.56.
14:58So basically all four holes have been less than two meters.
14:59So that's what, less than six foot or something.
15:11The results are consistent with those of other scientists.
15:15The majority of the ice in the Arctic is now comparatively thin and more likely to
15:21disappear in the summer.
15:25And this loss is accelerating.
15:28In 2007 and 2008, the extent of the summer sea ice was the smallest since records began.
15:38Less ice coverage there is, the more the Arctic will absorb solar radiation in the summertime,
15:42the warmer it'll get, the more ice will melt.
15:45It's a vicious circle.
15:47As the reflective sea ice disappears, the water warms up and more ice melts.
15:54This leaves the ocean even more exposed to the heating effects of the sun.
16:00And the whole process speeds up.
16:03And as the Arctic gets warmer, this accelerates global warming.
16:09This isn't something that's going to happen down the road, something that's going to happen
16:13to our children, it's going to happen in the future.
16:15This is happening to us now.
16:19There's been permanent ice cover in the Arctic Ocean for thousands of years.
16:24But as this NASA animation shows, the ice cover in the summer has been changing fast.
16:30In the 1980s, it was receding by an average of about 3% per decade.
16:36Now, it's over 11%.
16:41There will come a time when that will be a very, very different animation
16:47because all of this ocean will probably be blue come summertime.
16:51That's the projection. It's all done on computer models.
16:55Computer modelling is an attempt to predict the future, which is incredibly difficult.
17:00One estimate suggests the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free in the summer by 2013.
17:08That would mean the loss of almost 2 million square miles of sea ice.
17:13You know, you see those images of polar bears floating on bits of ice,
17:17and you just... It's not...
17:21It doesn't really become tangible until you're actually in it and witnessing it
17:25and seeing images like this, and then you realise how, in fact,
17:29the potential is that it's going to really impact on all of us.
17:32The fundamental importance of this ocean to the rest of the world
17:35just really can't be overstated.
17:38If the ice keeps melting, if the Arctic becomes this very, very much warmer ocean
17:44in the way that scientists are predicting,
17:46then that is going to change the entire planet.
17:54A warmer Arctic Ocean would not just contribute to global warming.
17:59It would affect the world in other ways.
18:02Salty water, cooled by the Arctic, helps to drive global ocean circulation,
18:08a conveyor belt of currents that connects every ocean.
18:13Cooling salty water from the Arctic region sinks to the ocean depths.
18:19It moves towards the equator, mixes with warmer currents,
18:24and eventually becomes lighter and flows back towards the pole.
18:30This does two important things.
18:33It helps to keep our oceans alive
18:35by moving oxygenated water and nutrients around the planet,
18:40and it regulates our weather by transferring heat around the globe.
18:45If it's affected, it could radically change climate patterns
18:49and have an impact on the health of our oceans worldwide.
18:55And it all begins under the Arctic ice.
19:00The team's preparing for their next mission,
19:03to search for what's living beneath the ice.
19:07But then something catches their attention.
19:12Partway ready for a dive, and Bridgewatch called out,
19:16there's a polar bear coming.
19:18He's come on quick, so it's all stopped for a moment.
19:26This is the icon of the Arctic.
19:28I think I would have been pretty disappointed
19:31if we'd come all the way up here and not seen a polar bear.
19:34You and me both, mate.
19:36The polar bear is the world's largest terrestrial carnivore.
19:40Males can be up to ten feet tall and weigh close to 800 kilograms.
19:45They have that slow, ponderous, lolloping kind of walk,
19:49but they cover a huge distance.
19:52Polar bears are well adapted to Arctic conditions.
19:57They have two layers of fur,
19:59and black skin that absorbs heat from the sun.
20:02Beneath this is ten centimetres of fat.
20:08So they can have trouble keeping cool.
20:12It's so cold out here, but the reason they go so slowly
20:15is they're so well insulated.
20:17Here we are just all freezing, and this polar bear has to go slowly
20:20so it doesn't overheat.
20:22This is crazy!
20:25But being so highly specialised
20:27makes them among the most vulnerable creatures in the Arctic.
20:32The polar bear is absolutely dependent on these ice flows to exist.
20:39Today, there are about 25,000 polar bears.
20:44But as the ice cap recedes, the population could decline fast.
20:49That's because the ice is a valuable source of food.
20:55We look around and it kind of looks like a big white desert,
20:57but it's actually a very diverse ecosystem.
20:59And it's critical to understand what's going on,
21:03what lives here in the fringes of existence.
21:10Life in the Arctic depends on the spring bloom.
21:14It occurs after months of complete darkness.
21:18When the sunlight begins to reappear,
21:20there's an intense growth of algae.
21:25But this bloom is short-lived.
21:27To survive, life here needs to store enough energy
21:31to make it through the long, dark winter.
21:37Toonie and Paul plan to search for the creatures
21:40that provide the energy the Arctic relies upon,
21:44to see how they cope with the severe conditions.
21:47To me, it seems like the most extreme environment,
21:50in minus-degree centigrade waters, just underneath the ice.
21:53And there is life that's perfectly adapted to those very specific conditions.
21:57Yeah, life at the edges is so fascinating, isn't it?
22:04The whole team gears up to work on the surface and beneath the ice.
22:12Paul and Toonie will search underneath the ice cap
22:15for amphipods and copepods,
22:17the minuscule creatures which help support this ecosystem.
22:24They're hard to see.
22:26So once these crustaceans have been collected,
22:29Philippe and Lucie will identify them on the surface.
22:36The data they collect will be sent to the Census of Marine Life,
22:41a survey being conducted by hundreds of scientists around the world.
22:47Wow.
22:54But first, they've got to find the tiny creatures.
23:03Yeah, it's pretty hard for a star out of a bubble
23:06to blow them around.
23:08Maybe that will dislodge them on the little crevices, you know.
23:18Oh, yeah, there you go, look.
23:21Oh, I see something.
23:23Oh, there, look.
23:25Get it, go on.
23:27That's it. You got it.
23:33To survive here, life must adapt to the icy conditions.
23:41Creatures here have got proteins in their blood
23:45that act as a kind of antifreeze,
23:47so they can actually keep on moving and working
23:50in these sub-zero temperatures.
23:56The water is clouded with algae
23:58as the expedition has arrived during the spring bloom.
24:04It's the ideal time to track down the crustaceans.
24:11Thank you. Fantastic.
24:16Because there is still so much to learn
24:19about the fauna of the Arctic,
24:21Philippe is keen to document what they find.
24:24Oh, yeah, yeah, you did, well done.
24:26A couple more? Oh, yeah, definitely.
24:28Well, we've definitely got a few species of amphipods
24:31and definitely some copepods in here.
24:34We should get out of there quickly because the amphipods eat the copepods.
24:38The last several years of work that I've been doing
24:41in terms of conservation, I've heard so much about amphipods.
24:44It's like a classic base of the food chain in the Arctic.
24:47I mean, grey whales travel 6,000 miles to feed on these,
24:50all the way from Mexico.
24:54And living along with the amphipods are these tiny copepods,
24:58just a few millimetres long.
25:02These species hold the secret to survival in the Arctic.
25:06They feed on algae and convert it into fat.
25:11Fat acts like a biological battery,
25:14a long-term store of energy.
25:17So everything living here relies on fat to get through the Arctic winter.
25:26Copepods live underneath the ice, feeding on the algae,
25:30sometimes only for a few months a year,
25:32and they build up these fat layers
25:34and can go for eight to ten months without feeding.
25:37The fact that these things are so high in fat
25:40means that they can pretty much fuel the rest of the food chain in the Arctic.
25:45And that fat gets passed on up the food chain,
25:48up to the fish.
25:50The fish gets eaten by the seals, the whales, the polar bears.
25:54So fat is an incredibly important currency.
25:58And these are the basis of the food chain.
26:01I mean, this is such an important creature.
26:05No-one knows how many different species of amphipods exist.
26:11This world is so little explored
26:14that even a single sample can uncover a find.
26:18It's a new one. It's very different than the others.
26:20It's definitely an amphipod.
26:25DNA analysis will be needed to be certain,
26:28but this may be a new species.
26:32You know, people just think we've explored it all
26:35and there's just so little we actually know.
26:38And here's just case in point, perfect example.
26:42Now then.
26:43Well, good work, y'all, I've got to say.
26:45Let's have a look.
26:46We've got a couple of things laid out here for you.
26:49You see these really, these really big,
26:52I mean, look what you've found, these big amphipods.
26:54These are the ones that walk upside down,
26:56underneath the ice.
26:59But as the ice shrinks,
27:01these species could disappear faster than we can discover them.
27:05These rely on the ice.
27:07I mean, without the ice, these can't exist.
27:11And while that doesn't mean necessarily
27:13that, you know, the whole ecosystem will collapse,
27:16but it definitely means it'll be changing.
27:18You'll see a shift in biodiversity,
27:20but we don't know what that means.
27:22A hugely underrated resource in the Arctic ecosystem.
27:26Nobody's ever interested in invertebrates.
27:28Invertebrates hold the key to the giant charismatic megafauna
27:32that we're all so concerned about.
27:34If the ice retreats, we could lose many of these tiny creatures.
27:39Then all life here will be threatened.
27:49The team is now heading south, back to the islands of Svalbard.
27:55Maritime archaeologist Dr Lucy Blue
27:58wants to explore the remains of a global industry
28:01that almost wiped out entire species here.
28:07Whaling.
28:13It's estimated that in the last 400 years,
28:16more than 2.5 million whales were killed worldwide.
28:26This channel would have been absolutely teeming with whales.
28:30It's kind of incomprehensible now.
28:32I know, it completely is, completely is.
28:37This is one of the places where the Arctic industry began.
28:42In the early 1600s, the Dutch and English came here in droves
28:47to satisfy the growing demand for oil and gas.
28:51The Dutch and English came here in droves
28:54to satisfy the growing demand for whale oil.
28:58It led to the wholesale slaughter of these ocean giants.
29:03There was quite a lot of competition,
29:05particularly at the beginning, in the early 1600s.
29:08They were actually fighting for the rights to catch the whales here,
29:12particularly in somewhere like this fjord.
29:15These waters in northern Svalbard attracted huge numbers of whales.
29:20The whales come in here because of the slightly shallower waters to feed,
29:24so it was just a prime hunting area.
29:34A Dutch settlement of up to 200 people grew here.
29:38It was called Smerenborg, Blubbertown.
29:45Just look at this.
29:47Look out into the fjord.
29:50I mean, you can just imagine 17th-century ships moored up.
29:54They would have been out there in the deeper waters
29:57and then the smaller whalers chasing this living whale.
30:03Contemporary paintings captured the scene.
30:07The first person would harpoon it.
30:09They needed as many harpoons.
30:11Every time it came up, you had to get another one in it.
30:16And eventually, the thing would just get exhausted
30:19from the fact it was diving and it had blood,
30:22you know, it was bleeding, it was pulling boats.
30:24I mean, it must have been an absolutely horrendous...
30:27A nightmare.
30:28I know, completely and utterly.
30:32It wasn't just the number of whales that made them choose this location.
30:37One of the main reasons that they actually settled here
30:40was because of this very shallow, sloping shoreline here,
30:44so it was like a natural ramp, in a way,
30:46to winch the whales onto the beach.
30:52Once on land, the blubber could be cut away,
30:55boiled down into the precious oil and sent back to Europe.
31:00This was the beginning of an industry that continued for hundreds of years,
31:04becoming more and more intense.
31:08Every species of whale in the Arctic was targeted.
31:13One of the hardest hit was the Greenland right whale,
31:17so-called because it was the right whale to hunt.
31:21Big and slow-moving, it was easy to catch.
31:24But the greatest advantage of all was that it floated when it was killed,
31:29making it simpler to haul back to shore.
31:35Over the course of the sort of 200, 300 years
31:38that they were hunting the whales,
31:40about 120,000 were killed,
31:44almost to the point of extinction.
31:47It's quite remarkable.
31:50But then they were easy prey, in a way, weren't they?
31:54The right whale.
31:59The right whale population never really recovered here.
32:03Today, there are almost none in the waters around Svalbard.
32:09As larger whales became scarce, hunters turned to smaller species.
32:17One was the beluga whale, which was hunted mercilessly.
32:22Some of its oil was so fine, it was used to lubricate watches.
32:29Having worked to conserve the oil,
32:31the hunters were able to use it as a lubricant.
32:35Having worked to conserve many species of whales,
32:38Philippe is keen to see how the belugas are doing here.
32:45You know, that stark white colour is so unique.
32:49There are no other whales that look like that.
32:51They look a bit like dolphins, actually, less like a whale.
32:54They do have a little bit of a dolphin look, like a smile.
32:57But that melon is so distinctive on its head, you know,
33:00this big, big melon is just very kind of the typical beluga shape.
33:05These belugas were filmed in captivity.
33:08Getting close to them in the wild will be much more difficult.
33:13But I heard they're really quite hard to actually see in the wild,
33:17especially here in this region.
33:19Yeah, they are supposed to be quite shy,
33:21and that's why I wanted to see a little bit of footage ahead of time.
33:24The team will try to find some belugas
33:27The team will try to find some belugas
33:29to help assess the health of the population in this part of the Arctic.
33:33But the fjords are immense,
33:35so to cover more ground, Paul and Tunie take a boat each.
33:44It's going to be a long, cold trip.
33:51Philippe and Lucie stand by to go to whichever boat finds any belugas.
33:58They centre their search along the edge of the massive glaciers
34:02at the head of the fjord.
34:06As the glacier's coming down, it stirs up all this silt and till,
34:11and that helps to create a really nutrient-rich area.
34:15You have fresh water flowing in, so you're going to have lots of fish,
34:18lots of all sorts of stuff living in there.
34:20These are ideal conditions for polar cod,
34:23fish the belugas feed on.
34:28It's perfect for the belugas, for them to hunt.
34:30This is prime beluga zone.
34:39I'm just going to keep looking this whole way along the glacier front.
34:46Belugas are not easy to spot.
34:49Their white colour is excellent camouflage.
34:52I'm looking for things that look like either breaking waves or lumps of ice,
34:56which is a little bit confusing,
34:58considering there are quite a few lumps of ice knocking away in these parts.
35:04I found a seal. I guess it doesn't count, though.
35:09This is a bearded seal, the largest species of Arctic seal.
35:15They've got these red heads,
35:17and that's because when they've been rooting around on the bottom for their food,
35:21they're rubbing against all the iron ore that's up in the fjord.
35:24So these are the only ones of these bearded seals that have got red heads
35:27rooting around on the bottom.
35:37After several hours of searching, still no sign of belugas.
35:43That's frustrating. I mean, it's a massive area, no question, but...
35:50They're here somewhere, the little belugas.
35:54I've just got to find them.
36:01Finally, Toonie has good news.
36:04So, we spotted the belugas.
36:07I literally just looked round, and it looked like this block of ice
36:10was just coming up and going down again.
36:12And we stopped the boat, and I can see a few of them.
36:18The whales are moving quickly towards the expedition ship.
36:23It's the opportunity Philippe has been waiting for,
36:26to assess the population of belugas at close quarters.
36:33This is very rare and, like, very lucky.
36:53We are surrounded by belugas.
37:08Philippe and Lucy estimate there are about 30 swimming around the boat.
37:14Very shy. I can't believe we're getting this close.
37:17Look, they're literally just off the bow.
37:22Belugas are adapted to life in these ice-covered seas.
37:28It's weird, because there isn't a dorsal fin,
37:31which you'd expect to see on most cetaceans or certainly dolphins.
37:34We think they've evolved to not have them for one of two reasons.
37:39When they're under the ice, they don't have a dorsal fin.
37:43They've evolved to not have them for one of two reasons.
37:46When they're under the ice, it's much easier to swim along the ice
37:49without a dorsal fin sticking out.
37:51The other reason is that I think it reduces surface area
37:54that's out in the water, that's not insulated,
37:57so that they stay warmer than having a whole area
38:00where there's blood flowing through that can cool.
38:04This pod of belugas is all adults.
38:07They don't turn completely white until they're at least seven years old.
38:14Around 40% of their body weight is blubber,
38:18one of the reasons they were attractive to the whalers.
38:37I've never seen belugas in the wild before, so that was brilliant.
38:41That was brilliant. I'd say mission accomplished.
38:43The best thing was to see so many of them.
38:46To see that they were so healthy.
38:54While this pod might look healthy,
38:56the beluga whale could face a new threat.
39:02A warming arctic could speed up the retreat of the glaciers,
39:06damaging their feeding grounds.
39:11As soon as that glacier recedes far enough that it's on land,
39:14it's not going to be the kind of habitat that belugas need.
39:19Increasingly, this is one of the most challenging places on Earth to survive.
39:29The arctic ocean is extremely cold, not very nutrient-rich,
39:34and for four months of the year, it's in darkness,
39:37so there's a limit to the marine life that can exist here.
39:43But are there corners of this ocean that can beat the odds?
39:51Philippe wants to head south to the shallow waters of Eastfjorden.
39:57Here, icy arctic water mixes with water from the Gulf Stream,
40:02which began life thousands of miles south in the tropical Gulf of Mexico.
40:10It's kind of a crossroads here.
40:12This is really the entrance, the beginning of the arctic habitat,
40:16and I'm very curious to see what the whole thing looks like,
40:19what the whole environment looks like.
40:22At first, it's not promising.
40:26It's still pretty barren and white, almost like the surface.
40:31But the empty seascape does show how this fjord was created.
40:37You can see the starring, where the glaciers sort of move through the valley.
40:41Deep gouges on the ocean floor reveal how millions of tonnes of ice scraped across it,
40:47scoring the rock and shaping the fjord.
40:54Then, the bleak seascape is transformed.
40:58Look at all this life!
41:00Yeah!
41:01It's like a whole new world.
41:03It's like a whole new world.
41:05It's like a whole new world.
41:08You know, this conception that the Arctic is this empty, desolate place,
41:14totally blown away by what we're seeing here.
41:21That's an explosion of life.
41:23There's reds and greens and yellows and greens and yellows.
41:26It's like a whole new world.
41:28It's like a whole new world.
41:30It's like a whole new world.
41:32It's like a whole new world.
41:34That's an explosion of life.
41:36There's reds and greens.
41:38That's a soft coral, related to the kinds of corals that we've seen down in much warmer waters.
41:45But this is a soft coral, so it's purely a filter feeder.
41:48Bright, brilliant pinkish-red colour.
41:51I did not expect to see a soft coral this vibrant here in the Arctic.
41:58Almost no warm-water corals can survive through the winter darkness.
42:02They rely on algae that live by photosynthesis and need the sun.
42:08But these soft corals have no algae.
42:11They just need a steady supply of nutrients.
42:17It really is like a soup down here.
42:22This is basically the confluence of the North Atlantic just heading towards the Arctic waters.
42:28This is where the cocoon meets, so that's why it's so incredibly nutrient-rich.
42:33It's a very unique environment in many ways.
42:40The current doesn't just support the coral.
42:43It also helps feed these anemones by bringing prey within reach of their tentacles.
42:52There's even a kelp garden here, something usually associated with warmer water.
42:58If you look closely, I can't see one right now, but you'll also find Arctic kelp up here.
43:05It can photosynthesise, or take energy from the sun, for just one week a year.
43:13It stores up that energy, it lasts for 51 weeks a year.
43:17That's pretty incredible.
43:20Other types of fish can also be found here.
43:24Other types of kelp have begun to thrive here in the last few years as the ice has receded,
43:29allowing more sunlight to reach these shallows.
43:33It demonstrates how life adapts to inhabit the most unlikely places.
43:39It gives you another kind of dimension of just how rich the environment here,
43:44how much richer than even I thought it would have been.
43:47When I first came here, I had no idea how rich it was.
43:50Then even I thought it would have been.
43:52When I first came here, I had no idea how much life there is.
43:56And that just confirms it. I mean, that was really amazing.
44:03The warm current flowing from the Gulf Stream
44:06also keeps much of the water around western Svalbard ice-free in summer.
44:12It's home to another arctic species almost hunted to extinction.
44:23We're just going to have a look and see what we can see.
44:25Can you make any out?
44:26They're quite a way off at the moment, but I can see movement.
44:30They've spotted Atlantic walruses.
44:42They were killed for their fat and tusks
44:45until there were only about a hundred left here.
44:48That was 60 years ago.
44:53The team wants to see how the walrus population is doing now.
45:01Walruses only live in the Arctic region,
45:04so for marine biologist Tuni it's a rare opportunity to get close to them.
45:12I've just been watching them all tumbling in the water
45:15and sometimes the play looks quite frantic
45:18because they are literally rolling and falling over each other
45:21and one of them lands on you and that's it, curtains.
45:29They can weigh up to two tonnes, giving them immense power.
45:34Look how far they can push themselves out of the water, though.
45:41Now that summer has cleared the ice here, the walruses have come to feed.
45:48They like to feed in about 15 metres of water
45:51and they're gatherers, not hunters,
45:53and they're after these clams which are about that big.
45:57The feeding season in the Arctic is short, so walruses are binge eaters.
46:02They can consume more than 50 kilograms of clams in just one day.
46:10Paul and Tuni move on to the land to get a closer look.
46:16They want to observe the walruses and determine the size of the colony.
46:21Walruses are suspicious by nature and easily alarmed,
46:25so Tuni and Paul approach downwind
46:28and crouch to avoid looking like predators.
46:31Right, there's one, look.
46:33Oh, yeah, he's coming up.
46:35He's not facing us. Let's keep going while he's busy.
46:38Smells good now.
46:40They don't smell like predators.
46:42They don't smell like predators.
46:44They don't smell like predators.
46:47They smell good now.
46:49They don't smell good.
46:51This wind is perfect for us, though.
46:53I don't believe they can smell us.
47:02Their Latin name translates as tooth-walking seahorse,
47:06which I just think is such a perfect literal translation.
47:17Judging by their large size, this colony is all male.
47:28The one that's just stuck its head up has got very short tusks,
47:31which means it's quite young.
47:33The one towards the back, you see, is much bigger.
47:36It's got much, much longer canines,
47:38which means that he's a much older male.
47:41They grow to 40 years old, so he might be 34.
47:45That big male there, he's got lots of cuts all over his chest
47:49because they do use their tusks for fighting,
47:52for establishing dominance.
47:58Let's do a count, roughly.
48:00The size of the colony will give an insight
48:03into the recovery of the species.
48:06OK, I can see...
48:08One, two, three...
48:11They count 22 male walruses on the beach.
48:15The rule of thumb is that about a quarter of the colony will be on land.
48:20The rest will be in the water, feeding.
48:24This colony is 88.
48:26That's... That's the right one.
48:28Between 10 and 100 and a whole lot.
48:31Perfect.
48:3660 years later,
48:3960 years ago, this colony would have represented
48:43almost the entire walrus population of Svalbard.
48:48They were made a protected species here in 1952
48:52and their numbers are slowly recovering.
48:55It's estimated there are now around 2,000.
49:00I love how they're, you know, on this great expanse of beach.
49:04They're all collected in one group
49:07and they're just lying all over each other.
49:09They're very social, aren't they?
49:11They're very communal creatures.
49:13Yeah.
49:15As the Arctic transforms,
49:17the Atlantic walrus could in the short term
49:20be a climate change winner.
49:24As their feeding grounds are usually near land,
49:27they're not dependent on ice flows to help them reach their food.
49:37And the retreating ice could expose more feeding grounds
49:41and stimulate the growth of clams, their staple diet.
49:47Which means that there's plenty of opportunity
49:49for their population to keep on and on increasing.
49:54At least initially, global warming could improve
49:58the Atlantic walrus' ability to survive.
50:03It's a real interesting balance
50:05because we talk a lot about the negativity of climate change,
50:08but it is always nice to have that little bit of a counterbalance,
50:12to be able to say, you know what,
50:14there are some creatures that might benefit in some way
50:19with the changing Arctic climate.
50:23The changes in the Arctic Ocean are complex
50:26and not always predictable.
50:30But what we do know is that they will affect us all.
50:36A transformation in this remote, bitter ocean
50:40will have a profound effect on life and climate around the globe.
51:05Transcription by ESO. Translation by —