Antarctic Mission

Viewers are transported to the Sub-Antarctic as the SEDNA IV sails across the Polar Front, an area where cold turbulent Antarctic waters meet warmer water from the north. This area represents one of the earth’s last great refuges for wildlife, with tens of millions of birds, fur seals and elephant seals returning each spring to breed after a winter at sea. The exceptional wealth of the Southern Ocean has always provided for amazing populations of unique species, but for how much longer?

A revelatory look at the often subtle and unexpected impacts of our changing climate. Antarctica is still very much a mythical continent—a place that we have known for less than 200 years. Understanding the mechanisms that led to the slow break-up of ancient ice shelves takes both ingenuity and a huge icebreaker, but the changes underway here are not only written in the ice. Antarctica’s inhabitants are telling us that their world is changing in complex and subtle ways. The once successful colonies of diminutive Adelie penguins, on the Antarctic Peninsula just south of the Antarctic Circle, have shrunk by 80 per cent. Although it seems ridiculous, their decline is due in large part to increased snowfall—one of the unexpected consequences of a warmer climate.

Beneath SEDNA’s hull lies a cold and mysterious world that is home to some of the toughest and most unusual creatures on the planet: giant ribbon worms, dragon fish, and ancient sponges. For millions of years, these fantastical creatures have enjoyed a stable world, but now that is changing as the seawater starts to warm. This episode shares the team’s incredible adventure underwater and follows them as they endure the long, dark austral winter living onboard SEDNA IV. And unfortunately, they discover the hard way that a warmer winter does not necessarily make their work any easier. A harbinger of our changing world, Antarctica is sending us all an alarming message.

Viewers will meet a daring, close-knit Canadian crew aboard the SEDNA IV, who set out to observe climate change and its consequences up close in the icy grip of Antarctica. This episode follows the crew as they embark on this spectacular adventure. Taking his lead from some of the world’s greatest explorers, mission leader Jean Lemire and his crew endured 17 months on the expedition to measure the threat posed by global warming in the Antarctic—a place where the Earth is particularly vulnerable.