Two new Nova films on climate

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

1) "Extreme Ice" begins this week (premiere 8 pm, 24 March 2009)

2) "The Last Extinction" (premiere 8 pm, 31 March 2009)

I watched "Extreme Ice" tonight on Ch. 44 (Boston area) instead of the presidential address, which pre-empted on Ch 2 and most other stations. But, there are many more showings of "Extreme ice" over the next week. The film is scientifically excellent, with lots of artsy footage by James Balog (M.S. thesis at U Colorado on the Big Thompson Canyon flood in 1976, but now probably the pre-eminent nature photographer on the planet). Many of the scientists featured, including a number from U Colorado, gave presentations using some of the same film footage at the recent American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco this past December.

"The Last Extinction" is about the controversial comet hypthesis for the triggering of the Younger Dryas cold interval about 12,900 years ago, which was also a hot topic at the recent AGU meeting.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/airdates.html

 

[TrishandAlex]

Excellent, thanks for this info.

 

[DougPaul]

1) "Extreme Ice" begins this week (premiere 8 pm, 24 March 2009)

Caught it last evening--it is excellent. And the photography is nice too...

Doug

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Connection to the White Mountains

Whoops, I forgot to mention that there are connections between "Extreme Ice" and New Hampshire, one being that Tad Pfeffer, who is highlighted in the first part of the film, grew up in Randolph, N.H., and spent last academic year on sabbatical there, which gave him lots of opportunities to ice climb locally, ski Tucks, etc. Another interesting factoid is that there are least six geology Ph.D.s who grew up in Randolph, which statistically is quite improbable, I think.

 

[sardog1]

Nova programs can be viewed online at NOVA/PBS -- follow the links from the "Archive" link on the left side of the page.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

I saw "The Last Extinction" last week, which was also excellent. This film features, among others, Paul Mayewski, Director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, with whom I climbed to over 17,000 ft on the Nun Kun massif in India to obtain the first high-altitude glacier ice cores to study climate change in 1980. About a decade later, Paul headed up GISP II (Greenland Ice Sheet coring project), which demonstrated that the initiation of Younger Dryas (YD) cooling that began 12,900 years ago happened within less than a decade. The NOVA film now suggests that the YD was triggered by a comet impact with Earth, which also wiped out all of the Pleistocene big mammals, such as wooly mammoths, sabertooth tigers, etc.

 

[DougPaul]

The latest "Now on PBS: On Thin Ice" is also worth watching.
http://wwd.wgbh.org/tv/program/now-pbs/thin-ice
http://www.pbs.org/now/
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/516/index.html

Host David Brancaccio and mountaineer/environmentalist Conrad Anker visit the Gangotri Glacier (Himalayn Mts) and Glacier NP and observe the accelerating rates of melting and discuss the long-term effects on humans.

Even if you don't like the message, some of the pictures are very nice...

Doug