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Where on Earth does the temperature drop to -128 degrees Fahrenheit? What is a wind farm? And how does rain look from an ant's perspective? Combining remarkable time-lapse and slow-motion photography with news footage and diagrams, this program provides a thorough overview of the causes and effects of the Earth's weather. Sections one through three present temperature, wind, and precipitation, while sections four through seven focus on weather measurement,...
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Continuing their journey across the U.S. in one of the world's largest airships, the team questions how the atmosphere changes with altitude and how that has an impact on the life found there. Microbiologist Dr. Chris van Tulleken and former paratrooper Andy Torbet search for living microorganisms in the "death zone" of high altitude. Parachuting from 26,000 feet, Andy has to overcome sub-freezing temperatures and fatally low levels of oxygen to undertake...
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When a major storm threatens, we want to know where it will hit and how strong it will be. Current methods of flying planes into hurricanes to track storms are costly and can be dangerous. Now engineers are developing small, inexpensive drones that can fly through hurricanes to take necessary measurements.
4) Ice
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Dr. Helen Czerski examines two of the coldest natural phenomena on Earth: icebergs and avalanches. Avalanches claim hundreds of lives every year. Now scientists are learning how something as tiny, fragile and delicate as a snowflake can transform into something as deadly as an avalanche. Changes in snow can give it the quality of concrete when someone is buried underneath it, and CT scanners are helping scientists understand the changes in the structure...
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Meteorologists studying the microphysical processes of clouds are learning more about what occurs naturally inside clouds. By increasing fundamental knowledge of complex cloud structure and the chemical and electrical mechanisms that trigger changes, weather and climate forecast models improve. Scientists and geophysicists are utilizing the newest technology to explore known and speculative information about cloud structures and mechanisms.
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Earth’s diverse climate and weather patterns are predominantly governed by global atmospheric circulation and ocean currents. This program looks at different atmospheric phenomena, including the global circulation model and how heating and cooling is driven by wind, air pressure systems, the effects of differences between land and sea temperatures, and how atmospheric conditions at different latitudes interact and impact meteorological patterns....
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There is nothing anyone can do to control the weather. Over time we have learned to live with wild storms, searing heatwaves, merciless droughts, and prolonged periods of bitter cold. As this program explains, through a mixture of on-the-spot news reports and fascinating background information, they are all examples of extreme or unusual weather—nature at its deadliest and most destructive.
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Few places on the planet are immune to wildfires; they are part of our forests' natural life-cycle. This program explores the phenomenon, from the outbreaks that hit Australia, California and Southern Europe each year during their long hot summers, to the fires that devour the humid rainforests of the Amazon and Indonesia, causing havoc and creating environmental disaster.
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Tropical cyclones, also called hurricanes and typhoons, cause catastrophic damage when they strike land. When a cyclone’s fury unleashes on population centers, death, injury, and wholesale destruction follow. This program explores the life cycle of cyclones: how atmospheric conditions, ocean temperatures, and the Earth’s rotation combine to create them and how, driven by winds, they eventually weaken after moving over land.
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Tropical cyclones devastate people, property, and infrastructure. This program outlines how cyclones are classified across the world and then examines the impact of Hurricane Matthew on the southeastern United States and Haiti in 2016. It compares the strategies that wealthy nations, like the U.S., employ to protect people and property to how the lack of resources in a poorer nation, like Haiti, leaves hurricane victims highly vulnerable to suffering...
19) Lightning
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The inside of a storm cloud is home to millions of ice particles rubbing against each other and generating static electricity, until the charge is so intense that it strikes down, or upward, in the form of lightning.
20) Energetic Earth
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How do you turn this thing off? Well, you can’t. This is Earth, and the power button is always switched on. The energy is always flowing. But where is the button? Where does this energy come from? You’re about to find out. Topics include: Energy and Heat, Solar Energy, Geothermal Energy, and Convection.