This brief video, from David Attenborough’s new series about polar life, Frozen Planet (discussed in the previous post about Discovery Channel’s refusal to show the climate change episode), makes me really want to see the show.
As described by PuffHo (yes, there’s sometimes good stuff there), a brinicle is an underwater icicle that forms from the surface down as dense, subzero-degree salt water (chilled by the air around sea ice) sinks, causing the warmer waters around it to freeze. Note how the brinicle forms a web of ice on the sea floor as it hits bottom, killing all the starfish and sea urchins it touches.
From PuffHo:
Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson filmed the stunning time-lapse clip below, which is apparently the first of its kind. Shot for the BBC’s “Frozen Planet,” the clip was recorded using a special time-lapse camera that caught the brinicle’s entire formation process.
Miller and Anderson captured the brinicle’s formation near Little Razorback Island, close to Antarctica’s Ross Archipelago. The duo found a number of fully formed brinicles close to the site before finding one in the process of forming.
These ice formations were known as ice stalactites until 1974, when Martin Seelye developed the now generally accepted theory of their formation.
The show’s website features a bunch of other nice clips, though I haven’t been able to view them in Spain.
18 Comments
The program is truly full of the most amazing photography in what must be the most inhospitable place on the planet. The series is an absolute must see.
I saw it on the telly a couple of nights ago. “Spectacular” is appropriate. Much as one would expect from “Auntie”.
Off to read the preceding post about the climate change programme. I’m somewhere between astonished, outraged and amused by what it sounds like, but I’ll RTFS/P/A before commenting.
Does anybody know if they have full episodes online? I don’t have a TV.
if you are in the UK you can see them on BBC iPlayer here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=frozen%20planet
If not then sorry.
I’m in Australia. I don’t know if they’ve shown it on television yet. They probably have, but I never watch television, and my reception of the ABC (which has a virtual monopoly on BBC programs) is poor.
I bought the series for my iPad from the iTunes Store. So far I’ve watched the first episode and the ‘controversial’ last episode on global warming.
The photography is spectacular.
I was actually surprised how noncontroversial the last episode was. All it basically said was that as the Earth warms and the Arctic ice and snow melts, the Earth’s albedo will decrease causing more global warming. And as the Antarctic warms, the ice shelves blocking the outflow of the Antarctic glaciers will breakup causing acceleration of the glacial outflow and causing an increase in sea levels.
There was very little about the human influence. And there was very little of David Attenborough just talking into the camera. The photography was just as spectacular as the first episode.
Intrigued by Dr. Coyne’s post, I watched a bit of the first episode on the BBC iPlayer today. Truly breathtaking. There’s an institute here in Cambridge called the Scott Polar Research Institute – I’m quite keen on checking out its museum now.
http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/transforming/museum.html
Sorry to be off subject,but Obama is getting it in the neck for not mentioning Gawd in his Thanksgiving speech. http://www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm/No_reference_to_God_in_presidents_T-Day_speech.html?ref=618
Breathtaking, yes – I’m lucky enough to be a Brit and have seen all five episodes that have aired so far.
Twice.
Better yet, the series is also generating new science. To date, I think the series is up to five new papers including one, which describes a unique hunting strategy employed by Pack I ce Killer Whales, the footage of which is in episode 2.
THe paper is here – http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-7692.2010.00453.x/abstract – and should whet your appetite for the footage, which is truly spectacular.
Off-topic: It might be interesting to see a review of this book from you:
A Jewish version of the New Testament
After viewing the video I clicked on another on the same topic by a young lady whose outstanding talent certainly was not on her shoulders, asking (and I paraphrase for brevity): who gives a shit why has this gone viral?
Anyone else tickled by Laura?
I saw this too. Well, half of it, anyhow. It didn’t seem like her breast, er, best video.
This is clearly another example of how Earth was designed for life.
I found it (figuratively) rather chilling when the brinicle hit the ocean floor and froze everything in its path. Anyone else think of Vonnegut’s ice-nine?
Yea. Poor starfishes! What kind of god they create? Someone who comes down from the icy heaven and smites starfies randomly ? You need to pray 17 times a day to avoid the chilly lightning ? brrr…. lucky I live up here with OT gods ..
I Stumpled upon this the other day and thought “I bet Mr. Coyne will have this as his next blog topic”. Lol. It really is amazing.
To anyone who hasn’t seen it, watch it. It is truly stunning. The BBC may have its critics and there have been some in the UK willing to criticise this series for its warmist agenda (nope, I hadn’t really spotted it so far either) but the day they stop making series like this is the day to sell the TV.
I’ve bought the series from the iTune Store, and have watched the first two episodes and the last one on global warming. It’s brilliant. It almost makes me want to revisit the Antarctic and the Arctic.
The last episode isn’t controversial. see my previous comment.
This programme is cleary what HD channels were meant for, breat work BBC!