Weather & Climate

The harsh environment of Antarctica offers numerous opportunities for science. This program depicts the challenges biologists, meteorologists, and geologists face as they study the continent's wildlife, climate, and formation. The video features analysis of fossils and ancient magma, shows how past weather patterns are examined in ice layers, and illustrates fish and bird population studies. Describing housing, clothing, waste removal, and other human adaptations, this Science Screen Report provides a detailed portrait of living and working in the vast frozen laboratory at the bottom of the world. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. Produced in association with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the Junior Engineering Technical Society. (24 minutes)

People everywhere are interested in the weather, but how does it all work? Beginning with Earth's atmosphere-its evolution, its gaseous composition, and its four regions-this video takes a close look at how conditions combine to create climate and weather. Topics include the Koppen Climate Classification System; weather prediction; types of clouds and precipitation; thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes; and weather patterns such as El Nino and La Nina. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. Correlates to National Science Education Standards, National Educational Technology Standards, and Standards for the English Language Arts. A Cambridge Educational Production. (26 minutes)

What is global warming? To what extent has humankind worsened it? And how are the people of the world being affected by it? This eye-opening two-part series offers some disconcerting answers as it examines the rapidly changing climate of planet Earth. 2-part series, 28 minutes each.

Changing climate probably played the decisive role in drawing hominids out of the trees, up on their hind legs, and off in search of food whose supply had been dispersed by the replacement of rainforests by grasslands. Migrations were motivated by the search for food; during ice ages, when sea levels dropped, new areas became accessible and populations spread. Links between climatic changes and emerging civilizations have also been postulated; the collapse of civilizations confronted with climatic challenges to which they could not or would not adapt is clearly documented: the Indus River civilization, the Viking settlement in Greenland, even the French Revolution. And Hitler's disastrous decision to invade Russia in 1941 was apparently based on inaccurate weather forecasting! (26 minutes)

This series offers a thorough introduction to and analysis of the relationship between climate and humanity: our linked prehistory, history, and likely future. Climate is the determining factor in where and whether life exists-why there is life on Earth and not on Mars and Venus; in specialized organisms where it is hot or cold, wet or dry, light or dark. Climatic change killed off the dinosaurs and brought prehistoric humans out of the trees and upright on their feet to search for food. And climatic change is threatening now to wipe out life on Earth-by drowning, boiling, suffocating, starving, or genetic destruction. These programs examine the nature of climate, what people have done to alter it, whether we are prepared to foot the costs of saving our planet, or to try to reverse the processes we have set in motion by attempting with scientific means to counter the deadly prospects which confront us.

Destabilization in the Middle East and concerns over global warming are heating up the national dialogue on how America intends to power itself into the future. In segment one of this NewsHour program, Michael Marvin, of the Council for Sustainable Energy; Dan Reicher, of the World Resources Institute; Myron Ebell, of the Competitive Enterprise Group; and Herbert Inhaber, author of Why Energy Conservation Fails, consider the big picture. Then, segment two narrows the focus to wind power: improvements in wind farm technology, government incentives and legislation, and rising consumer demand. Drawbacks such as the unpredictability of wind are also considered. (30 minutes)

The lowland basis around Los Angeles contains the most extensive water conservation and flood control system in the world. In 1917, work began on a system of dams and improved channels to control the floodwaters entering the basin. This program looks at the way this system was built and the problems entailed in its design and construction. (20 minutes)

Planet Earth is an amazing machine, and we-and our future-are riding on it. This video introduces students to the Earth system's primary interacting subsystems (the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere); the nitrogen, carbon, and water cycles; and three surface processes: weathering, mass-wasting, and erosion. The greenhouse effect, the impact of acid rain on the environment, and diminishing freshwater resources around the world are considered as well. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. Correlates to National Science Education Standards, National Educational Technology Standards, and Standards for the English Language Arts. A Cambridge Educational Production. (19 minutes)

As visually spectacular as it is informative, this program thoroughly surveys the world's varied climate systems. Using simple color-coded maps based on the Koppen classification system, the video identifies the characteristics of the following zones: humid tropical climates, wet-dry tropics, dry climates, subtropical and mid-latitude deserts and steppes, humid mid-latitude climates, humid subtropics, summer dry subtropics, marine west coasts, humid continentals, sub-arctic climates, polar climates, tundra, and highland climates. (24 minutes)

This Science Screen Report looks at the causes of climatic conditions and their influence on human activity. Outlining principles of topography and atmospheric pressure, the program identifies specific types of weather and how they form global patterns-sometimes with damaging and deadly results. The role of ocean currents, and their relation to massive storm systems such as hurricanes and El Nino, is made clear. This program is a valuable source of information on meteorological studies, including the use of satellite technology. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. Produced in association with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology and the Junior Engineering Technical Society. (14 minutes)

By building roads, watering crops, and grazing cattle, we are constantly changing the climate. We may also modify the weather by cloud seeding, though there is no scientifically accepted proof that rain or snow would not have occurred naturally in cases where seeding appears to have been successful. This program shows how migration in the Sahel has altered regional climate; examines the tomorrow-be-damned policy of water usage in Arizona; and investigates the drastic miscarriage of good intentions in Central Asia, where efforts to irrigate the desert turned into the worst climatic disaster in the history of the Soviet Union: the drying up of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake. The program details how this catastrophe happened and reveals its consequences for the population, the physical geography, and the climate of the area. (26 minutes)

Climate is a changing phenomenon, the first signs of alteration appearing in its day-to-day behavior-i.e., the weather. One readily observable recent climatic change is the increase in the number and ferocity of giant weather events like hurricanes. This program explains the origin of tropical storms, tropical rainforests, and polar deserts. It shows the route and the effect of the Gulf Stream and explains its role in the Little Ice Age of the 16th century; theorizes about the events that caused the Sahara to become desert; and examines the link between these events, changes in the sun's activity, and cycles involving dust storms and volcanic eruption. (26 minutes)

This alarming program investigates the likelihood of the biggest climate change in more than 10,000 years. Scientist Richard Alley asserts that global warming contributes to record amounts of cold freshwater from glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet being pushed into the North Atlantic, threatening to shut down the Gulf Stream that keeps northern Europe and the U.S. warm and wet. Within a decade, a new ice age could set in, with ice floes off the coast of England, and the River Thames frozen over. The U.S. does not look likely to escape, and the effects may even lead to the destruction of the Amazon jungle. Original BBCW broadcast title: The Big Chill. (50 minutes)

A life-sustaining envelope of gas surrounds the earth. This atmosphere contains oxygen, CO2, water vapor, and other gases-it is what generates climate, which affects all living beings. This program analyzes the sun's gradual brightening and the relationship between sunlight and CO2, explains why the atmospheres of Mars and Venus cannot sustain life, theorizes about the disappearance of dinosaurs and a dinosaur-friendly climate, and explains the relationship between climatic change and continental drift. (26 minutes)

Earth's temperature is on the rise-and so are incidents of severe weather and heat-related health problems. This program travels the world to observe how global warming, accelerated and exacerbated by air pollution, is affecting society. Coastal erosion in Florida, the destruction of Alaskan forests by the spruce beetle, the depletion of Montana's glaciers, the decline in North Pacific salmon, rising sea levels that threaten to engulf the world's small islands, increases in smog-related asthma, and the spread of malaria into the highlands of Africa, Madagascar, Pakistan, and Peru are all being chalked up to significant changes in ocean and air temperatures. (28 minutes)