The first recording today starts with a trail for Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Christmas.
There’s also a trail for Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS? One Year On.
Then, the next part of Earth: The Power of the Planet – Oceans. Professor Iain Stewart is “in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s only when you get out here that you fully appreciate the sheer vastness of the sea. But the oceans are far more than just huge reservoirs of water. They have transformed our planet.”
This is what it would look like if all the water on the Earth was collected in one place.
He visits the Amazon basin to outrun a very fast Tidal Bore, a wave that comes in from the sea and stretches across the whole river, and can travel tens of kilometres.
He visits a salt mine in Sicily, formed by the retreat of the Mediterranean.
He visits a cave of Gypsum crystals. “Sadly, I can’t stay inside the geode for too long, as the moisture from my body will soon start to dissolve the gypsum. Which these magnificent crystals are made from.”
Another piece of evidence for when the Mediterranean evaporated, when the straits of Gibraltar closed, was fossil evidence of elephants on Sicily – put elephants that were about the size of a goat.
I love this undersea capsule. It looks like something out of Thunderbirds. The air tanks keep the helmet portion dry, but your body is just in the sea.
He talks about the gulfstream, keeping the UK warmer than many other places at the same latitude. “And since it’s such a beautiful spring day, I thought I’d enjoy the warm, balmy Gulf Stream waters for myself.” It turns out it’s still quite cold.
He looks at sedimentary evidence for a great extinction, caused when the ocean currents that keep the water supplied with oxygen just collapsed. “Once the conveyor had stopped, oxygen was no longer carried down into the deep sea from the surface. So as oxygen disappeared, the marine life which relied on it died. Eventually, nearly all life in the oceans perished.”
He visits Palau to see the Golden Jellyfish, whose population is very sensitive to changes in temperature, and which have already seen massive losses when ocean temperatures rise. “In 1998, the sea temperatures throughout the region increased by almost two degrees. Now, that may not sound a lot, but for these jellyfish, it was a disaster. It’s estimated up to 20 million of them perished. Just two degrees of warming was enough to almost annihilate an entire species.”
Media Centre Description: Geography series with Dr Iain Stewart. Iain travels to surfers’ paradise Hawaii to learn more about oceans, explaining the difference between waves, tides and currents. In the Amazon, he rides the world’s longest tidal bore. In the beginning, there were no oceans: they are thought to have gradually formed from volcano steam and melted comet ice. Change continues today: a new sea is forming in Ethiopia, which will separate East Africa from the mainland, and the Mediterranean is drying up.
Recorded from BBC TWO on Tuesday 11th December 2007 21:00
BBC Genome: BBC TWO Tuesday 11th December 2007 21:00
After this, there’s a trail for Fanny Hill.
Then the recording stops as an episode of Room 101 starts, with guest Marcus Brigstocke.
The other recording today is a repeat of last week’s episode of Spooks.
Media Centre Description: Drama series about the British Security Service. Having been humbled by Yalta’s attack on their satellite network, the US is planning air-strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. The team are suspended from the Grid following the Ros Myers affair, and, when utterly impotent and isolated, an old adversary of Harry’s appears out of the woodwork to inform them of a bomb he’s planted in London. It’s either innocent civilians or the team itself who will perish, but who is really behind the threat?
Recorded from BBC ONE on Tuesday 11th December 2007 21:05
BBC Genome: BBC ONE Tuesday 11th December 2007 21:00
After this there’s a trail for Mr & Mrs Bin Laden.
Then the recording stops with the start of the 10 O’Clock News. There’s a mention, in the London News, of the anniversary of the explosion at the Buncefield Oil Depot, which just across town from me. The main story is a terrorist attack in Algiers.