All language subtitles for BBC.Earths.Greatest.Spectacles.02.of.03.Svalbard.1080p.HDTV_english

Our planet is
a place of constant change.

Each year, the seasons shift
and life is transformed.

But there are places where the
changes are so epic in scale

they can be seen from space.

In this series,

we reveal three of the most
miraculous transformations.

The islands of Svalbard -

within a few weeks,
frozen wastelands burst into life.

The African Okavango -

a desert transforms into a magical
water-world.

And the mysterious forests
of New England

erupting in a blaze of
seasonal colour.

Life finds the most ingenious
and surprising ways to thrive

in the world's
fastest changing landscapes.

Svalbard -

a frozen ice world,

Iying far beyond
the Northern tip of Norway.

A lonely group of islands,

almost at the top of the world.

For four months, because
of the tilt of the Earth,

Svalbard is cloaked in darkness,

hidden from the life-giving
light of the sun.

But every year,

a miracle happens here.

As the sun returns,

Svalbard undergoes
an extraordinary transformation.

From perpetual darkness
to perpetual light.

From frozen ice world to
land of vibrant life.

This is the story of how life
survives one of the planet's

most extreme changes.

WI ND HOWLS

The Svalbard winter.

A night that lasts for months.

Without the sun's light,

nothing can grow...

..and ferocious winds are dragging
temperatures to minus 40 and below.

How can anything survive here?

One animal is in its element.

A polar bear has been sleeping
peacefully through the storm.

Its unique coat reflects heat
back into its body just

Iike a survival blanket,

so it is quite comfortable,
even at minus 40.

And remarkably, for the polar bear,

these are relatively good times.

The sea ice is at its maximum,

connecting the islands of Svalbard
to the whole of the Arctic...

..so the bear can stride out
over the frozen ocean,

its prey right beneath its feet.

A ringed seal.

Just a metre beneath the bear,

but protected by the ice.

Until it needs to breathe.

The seal scrapes out
a network of breathing holes

dotted about the ice.

It can hold its breath
for 45 minutes,

but then it must come up for air.

The trick for the polar bear is
guessing where it will appear next.

But it only needs to catch
one seal a week

and it is very patient.

Bears can wait at
a single hole for days.

Only a handful of animals are tough
enough to survive the winter here.

The Svalbard reindeer is the
world's most Northerly herbivore,

and that's a challenge
when the land is locked in ice.

They survive partly off
their summer fat reserves,

Iosing up to half their body
weight during winter.

But they do need to eat.

With their sharp hooves,
they chisel through the crust of ice

and then literally chew the rocks,

scraping off the coating
of frozen moss and lichen.

But after just seven
or eight winters

their teeth start to wear out...

..and that's when many
struggle to make it.

When winter claims one life,

another is quick to profit.

An Arctic fox.

It scavenges its way
through the winter,

visiting frozen carcasses like this,

and following polar bears
to feed on their leftovers.

And this is the only bird to
over-winter in Svalbard.

The ptarmigan, a relative
of the grouse, but tougher.

Like the reindeer, they pack on
extra fat in the autumn,

but not for energy -

for insulation.

So they are 50% heavier
in the winter.

But now they're too fat to fly any
distance.

On feathered feet, they scuttle
across the tundra,

seeking out the tiniest shoots of
plants

Iying dormant in the frozen
ground.

For everything but the polar bear,

such conditions are hard to endure.

For the first explorers who came
here from Europe 400 years ago,

the Svalbard winter
felt like an eternity.

They must have wondered
whether the sun would ever return.

For many, it never did.

But there is light here.

When the moon rises,

it can stay up for a week.

And every so often,

the solar wind coming from
the other side of the planet

collides with the Earth's magnetic
field,

creating magical
colours in the Arctic sky.

Aurora Borealis,

the Northern Lights.

It's now mid- February

and after four long months,

the sun finally returns.

At first, the sun is only
up for an hour at a time

so it brings little warmth,

but it signals the beginning

of Svalbard's miraculous
transformation.

As the sun's light reaches
out across the landscape,

the true nature of this

extraordinary wilderness is
revealed.

Beautiful but brutal.

Vast glaciers flow from lonely
peaks,

pulverising mountains and bulldozing
their remains to the frozen sea.

There are no forests or woodlands.

But surprisingly,

the same titanic forces that make
this place

so inhospitable have also drawn
people here.

Coal,

brought right to the surface by
the scouring of Svalbard's glaciers.

A source of great wealth for those

who can survive here long
enough to get it.

Svalbard belongs to Norway today,

but in the past, many nations came

to exploit its rich coal deposits,

including Soviet Russia.

But one grand scheme after another
succumbed to this frozen land.

This is Pyramiden.

Once home to over 1,000 people,

now a ghost town.

Inside these buildings, Russian
workers lived with their families.

But today it all lies abandoned.

The plan was to give the people of
Pyramiden everything

they needed to survive here
through the long, dark winter.

Including the world's
Northernmost piano.

But it couldn't last.

These mines were never profitable.

The cost of survival

here at the frozen ends of the Earth

was just too great.

Today, Arctic foxes roam the streets

where people tried to tame
the Svalbard winter.

Mid-March.

The days have been getting
dramatically longer.

Only four weeks since the sun's
return

and there are already 12 hours
of sunlight every day.

Though temperatures are still
well below freezing,

the sun's energy is now strong
enough to trigger a chain

of events, fundamental to life
in Svalbard,

under the sea ice.

These strange colours are caused
by ice algae.

It lays dormant all winter,

frozen into the fabric of the ice.

Just like a plant,

it has the power to turn
the sun's energy into food.

As the sunlight starts
to penetrate the ice,

it energises
the algae's green cells.

The switch is flicked.

From the dark depths, tiny
creatures are now drawn to the ice.

Copepods,

just a couple of millimetres long.

They may look unimportant,

but they hold a key to life here.

They've been waiting to gorge
themselves on ice algae.

Very soon they are chomping
away in their millions.

Now they take the sun's
energy from the algae

and concentrate it into a
clear drop of fatty oil,

which they store in a sack
inside their bodies -

bottled Arctic sunshine.

For now, all that energy is locked
away beneath the sea ice.

But not for long.

The intensifying sun
heats from above.

The warming water melts from below.

CRASHI NG

It's April and the door to
Svalbard's rich waters is opening.

It starts slowly at first,

the silence of winter broken

by the distant calls of seabirds.

But quickly their numbers build.

Guillemots,

Iittle auks,

eider ducks.

Around six million birds return
to Svalbard every spring,

travelling many thousands
of kilometres

from their winter homes in Europe,

timing their arrival
for just this moment.

Right away they start to refuel,

diving into Arctic water to

feast on the oil-rich copepods.

And beneath them,

other life is stirring.

Vast shoals of fish now come for
the copepods' bottled sunshine,

and in turn become food
for more birds.

The light from the strengthening sun
has kick-started spring.

When the birds first
reach their nesting cliffs,

they find them covered in ice.

It's still bitterly cold here,

but they need to stake their claim
early.

Very soon there will be no more
space available.

And they've got less than
four months to

raise their chicks before they'll
have to be off again.

So immediately they get straight
on with the business of breeding.

They don't have the luxury of time.

It's now the middle of April

and Svalbard's transformation is
moving into a whole new phase.

As the Earth travels further round
the sun,

spinning on its axis
once every 24 hours,

Svalbard now moves
into permanent day.

Welcome to the land
of the midnight sun.

Now that the sun is
shining all the time,

it starts to have
an impact on the land.

Under the snow,

small plants are already absorbing
the sun's light.

As they warm up,

they start to melt themselves
out of their icy prison.

The summer is short and it
pays to get a head start.

One strange plant has taken
this trick to an extreme.

This is the compass plant,

one of the great survivors
of the Svalbard tundra.

It can live for over 300 years.

Its success is down
to a secret weapon -

a central heating system.

The spongy dome catches
the sun around the clock,

absorbing its energy.

Though the air temperature is still
hovering around freezing,

the inside of the dome can rise
to 30 degrees Celsius.

But it doesn't heat up evenly.

As the sun circles the horizon,
its intensity varies.

The south side of the plant gets
much more warmth than the north.

So when the flowers come,

they erupt in synch with the sun,

from south to north.

It was the early explorers
who first noticed this and

used the strange plant
to help find their way,

just like a compass.

As the snow melts further,

it reveals a pile
of old mining carts.

For plants that don't have
their own central heating,

the carts offer
shelter from the biting wind.

A tiny walled garden where spring
can really start to take hold.

And as the sun's warmth
increases further,

the whole tundra starts to bloom.

By the end of May,

a greener Svalbard is
emerging from the ice.

After such a long wait,

for Svalbard's animals,
the arrival of spring is miraculous.

The reindeer desperately need the
grass that the melt is uncovering,

but at first they seem a little
unsure of this new, green world.

They still have their thick
winter coats.

As temperatures rise,

it's getting a little hot for them.

So whenever they can,

they take a break from eating

and settle down on the remaining
islands of cool snow.

It's the latest arrivals who
first really take

advantage of the opportunities here.

Barnacle geese.

They've come all the way from
Scotland,

where they spent the winter.

As the tundra is revealed,

it offers an untapped
source of rich energy,

worth coming over 2,000km for.

This little bird is a snow bunting.

He too has come far -

all the way from Russia.

And this is the object
of his affection.

Together, they have set up
home in an abandoned miner's cabin.

In the middle of a whale vertebra,

hanging on the wall, is a cosy nest,

and in that, a ball of soft reindeer
fluff, ready to nestle tiny eggs.

Now they are here, they are the
Northern-most

songbirds in the world.

And theirs is the song
of Svalbard's spring.

As the Arctic fox trots
out of winter,

she sheds her coat quickly
to avoid overheating.

She has a lot to do.

Foxes are nomadic in the winter,

but now the race is on to establish
her summer breeding territory.

She even rolls up a ball of her fur,

adding a dash of urine to help
signpost her patch.

And every so often she makes time to
meet up with her mate.

They got together in the middle
of the winter.

Very soon she'll be giving birth.

And then she will have just
90 days to raise her family.

It's now already June

and off the coast of Svalbard the
sea ice is breaking up fast.

The polar bear's world is changing.

Though a polar bear can smell
a seal from over a kilometre away,

in this constantly moving landscape,
it's much harder to track it down.

It must take to the water to
navigate

through the drifting maze of ice.

Bears are excellent swimmers,

but no match for a seal.

Life is getting harder.

As the ice cover falls below a
critical 50%,

the bear spends more energy
catching seals

than he gets from eating them.

While the breaking ice makes life
more difficult for the bear,

it allows Svalbard's heaviest
resident to access the land.

Walruses.

At one and a half tonnes,

they can be three times
the weight of a polar bear.

After spending the winter
at the edge of the sea ice,

they now return to
Svalbard's shores.

They haul out on their favourite
beaches for the first time

since last autumn.

Both males and females have tusks,

some over a metre long.

The bigger the tusks,
the more important you are.

They're also a good
defence against polar bears,

and useful props for a heavy head.

THEY GRUNT

It's their handsome whiskers

and extraordinary mouths that
are their most important assets.

But they don't come into their own
until they go out foraging.

And they're in no hurry.

Walrus siestas can last a week.

When they finally decide
to go for a swim,

there are some novel ways of getting
all that way down to the water.

Once they're in,

their strange features
begin to make sense.

The giant body becomes weightless.

With just its nose on the seabed,

it blasts away the mud with
high-pressure jets of water

forced through its nostrils,
feeling around with its 500 highly

sensitive whiskers for its favourite
food -

clams.

It just loves clams.

When it finds the clams,

it sucks the flesh right
out of them

with its unique vacuum mouth.

A walrus can consume
over 1,000 clams a day

without eating a single shell.

But these extraordinary animals have

only recently been making
a comeback.

Not long ago, they were brought to
the brink of extinction.

Just beyond their beach

are strange lumps of what
appears to be concrete.

In the middle of these rings
were once great

cauldrons in which the blubber
from Svalbard's sea creatures was

melted down into precious oil.

Year after year, as the oil
spilled over,

it congealed with the surrounding
sand and set into stone.

Nearby is the evidence
of the scale of this destruction.

The bones of thousands
of beluga whales.

Long before it was
known for its coal,

Svalbard was one of the places to
hunt whales and walruses.

Their oil once lit the lamps

and lubricated the machinery
of industrial Europe.

For 300 years, the slaughter
continued

until there was almost
nothing left to kill.

But it took its toll on humans too.

As the ground repeatedly freezes

then thaws every year,

anything buried is pushed to the
surface.

A whaler's grave.

Though the promise of wealth

and adventure drew many to these
remote whaling stations,

Iife expectancy was so short,

you even had to bring your own
coffin.

July is the hottest month.

Even the great fjords that cut

right into the mountains are free
of sea ice

and the summer heat kick-starts

another chain of events that
benefits life here.

For so long, the land
and sea were united by ice.

Now open water laps against the
faces of Svalbard's great glaciers.

Behind the face, the glacier

stretches into the distant
mountains.

Billions of tonnes of ice pushing
down towards the coast.

As the sun starts to melt the ice on
the glacier's surface,

water funnels downwards and
lubricates the junction

between rock and ice under the
immense weight of the glacier.

For some glaciers,
the pressure gets too much.

They start to accelerate.

Svalbard's glaciers are unusual.

Many remain motionless for years
and then suddenly take off.

These surging glaciers are some
of the fastest on Earth,

especially when summer melt-water
lubricates them.

They can reach speeds of up
to 25 metres per day.

At the face, the colossal weight of
ice pushes from behind,

while below, the warming sea erodes
the base.

Something has to give.

CREAKING

But this is not just
a destructive force.

Where the glacier meets the sea,

it enhances life.

In spite of the danger,

kittiwakes and gulls are flocking
in their thousands to the ice front.

Right in the impact zone,

they start to feed.

Where the melt water flowing under
the glacier reaches the sea,

it billows upwards, right in front
of the falling ice.

As this plume of freezing water
rises, it stuns tiny plankton

and brings them to the surface.

A microscopic feast,

so rich it's worth
risking your life for.

But you've got to keep
your wits about you.

It's not only birds that come here.

Beluga whales.

Young calves that don't yet have the
white colour of adults.

They swim in their family pods,
feeding on fish that in turn

eat the plankton at the foot
of the ice cliff.

Though the years of whaling almost
wiped them out,

in 1961 they were finally
given protection.

Today they are becoming a much
more common sight,

especially where the
glaciers meet the sea.

By mid-summer,

there is more life on Svalbard than
at any other time of the year.

The bird cliffs are now at full
capacity.

Every ledge is taken.

The chicks hatched three weeks ago

and the race is now on to feed them
fast enough.

In just three more weeks,
they must be out of here.

Down below, the tundra too is
alive with new life.

The reindeer have finally
got their cool summer coats,

and the males are sporting
impressive new antlers.

The fox couple are busier than ever.

They've had six pups and the
pressure is on to feed them.

They will need to be fully
grown in less than a month.

Arctic fox cubs don't
like to share food.

When the winter comes they will be
completely on their own,

so they need to learn to fend
for themselves right from the start.

But for the parents,
now is the crunch time.

As they work 24 hours a day,

making many thousands of journeys
to the den with food, they become

exhausted, using up more energy than
through the whole of the winter.

In the skies above,

aerial traffic has
reached fever pitch,

as the birds frantically try

to keep up with the demands
of their offspring.

But as they shuttle back
and forth,

bringing food from the ocean
to the cliffs,

they do much more
than feed their chicks.

Some of the ocean's rich nutrients
passes straight through the birds.

As all that fertiliser is
washed down from the bird cliffs,

it has a profound
effect on the land below.

The grass that now fattens up
the reindeer for winter.

The soil that nourishes the plants.

The richness of Svalbard's land,

ultimately, comes from the sea.

It's now late July

and the last of Svalbard's summer
visitors are only just settling in.

Arctic terns have come all the way

from the other end of the Earth,
from Antarctica,

the longest
migration of any animal -

over 30,000km.

But in three weeks, they'll have to
fly all the way back again

and their chicks have only
just hatched.

In only 21 days' time,

this ball of fluff will need to fly
30,000km.

But it's well worth the parents
travelling all this way.

Svalbard's super-rich waters contain
all the energy required.

All they have to do is transport
it from ocean to beak.

As the adults fish nonstop,

sometimes they have to leave
a chick on its own,

and because terns nest on the
ground,

that can make it vulnerable.

The retreating sea ice has now
forced Svalbard's largest

predator onto the land

and it's coming this way.

Now is the toughest time for polar
bears.

It loses a kilo of body weight for
every day it spends on the land.

The great ice bear
turned scavenger -

and he's starving.

Not a good moment to
break your cover.

SQUEAKING

But the chick's cries for help
have been heard.

Terns may look dainty
but they are highly aggressive,

and totally fearless.

Repeated attacks draw blood
from the bear's sensitive nose.

The Arctic's top predator,

driven away by one of its smallest
birds.

As August arrives,

Svalbard's transformation
reaches its maximum extent.

It's only a fleeting transition.

By the end of the month,

the sun will be setting again.

The winter is just around the
corner.

But as Svalbard's yearly miracle
prepares to come full circle,

the summer sun helps trigger
a final dramatic change.

In the far north east of Svalbard

is a place where it always feels
like winter.

A massive ice cap.

A frozen monster.

Like a giant fridge, it cools this
whole area of Svalbard.

Only now in late summer does the sun
start to have any effect here.

On the surface of the ice,
melt water pools together

and starts to flow.

Where the ice cap meets the sea

is one of the world's greatest
wonders.

The ice cliffs of Austfonna.

For nearly 200km, they rise
uninterrupted from the ocean.

But recently, these cliffs have been
changing.

Something we can see most
clearly from space.

The very latest satellites can make
precise measurements of ice

thickness and speed of movement.

What they reveal

is astonishing.

A massive tongue of ice, 50km long,

is on the move,

sliding downwards from the centre
of the ice cap out into the ocean.

A wall of ice, advancing
half a metre every hour.

4km a year.

It's thought that massive
events like this are part

of a natural surge cycle lasting
several years,

but no-one knows exactly what
sets them off.

The latest research suggests that
summer meltwater

penetrating the ice cap may
be a trigger.

Svalbard's ice world is incredibly
delicately balanced.

Just tiny rises in global
temperatures could have profound

effects on the whole seasonal
cycle of life here.

Today, as Svalbard heads for the
winter once more,

its future lies on a knife-edge
of just a few degrees.

It's now the end of August

and Svalbard is returning to the
dark time.

Svalbard's summer visitors must now
leave.

They've reaped the benefits of the
rich summer,

but if they stay here any longer

they'll die.

As parents now force their young to
take flight,

some before they're really ready...

..foxes get a last feast before the
lean time.

Reindeer just keep on grazing.

What they eat now decides
whether they will make it through.

Only one creature here welcomes
the coming winter.

As the sun drops below the horizon
for the last time

and Svalbard moves back
on to the dark side of the Earth,

the big change

comes once more.