Frozen Planet: On Thin Ice (Dan Rees, 2011): UK

Reviewed by Andrea Uttenthal. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2012.

Changes are about to come. The ice is melting away which brings many questions to live. What does it mean to our planet?
This documentary brings focus on the polar population that are about to drop and the important factor: the thickness of the polar ice. David Attenborough, the narrator of this documentary, reveals how scientists measure the changes in the polar regions and what that mean for all the animals and people living there – as well as for the whole planet.

What was used to be is over. We can’t ignore the global warming, because it’s going to hit us sooner than we think. Today the thickness of the ice in the polar regions measures half the thickness it did in the 1980’s. It could almost melt entirely over just one summer. It’s warning fast, which will affect the whole planet. Where there’s lots of ice, the Albedo effect reflects 90% of the sun. Albedo is the proportion of the incident light or radiation that is reflected by a surface, typically that of a planet (especially ice) or the moon. If the ice is gone the reflection won’t be as effective, which will change our climate significantly. But that’s not the only problem. All the Artic animals living on the polars are threatened to death. It’s getting harder to find food and they are forced to be ‘on the run’ , since the ice underneath their feet are melting away. And when the ice is melting, the temperature on the planet is brought up more quickly. Some animals can’t live under these new circumstances.

Throughout the documentary beautiful images of the polar regions and the animals living there touches you deeply. Viewing a sunset in the polar regions is just beautiful. It’s majestic. It makes you feel kind of sad, because you now changes are about to happen. When following the life of a female polar bear and her two babies, you really learn how bad the situation is. They are forced to swim from ice floe to ice flow and the momma bear hasn’t eaten for more than six months – she is saving it for her babies. Those small creatures are adorable and you just want the best for them.

There’s a great use of satellite picures in the documentary as well. They show how the polar used to look like and how it looks today. It’s frightened to see how much has changed over the past two-three decades. Time lapse images of Greenland shows the extreme movement of the ice.
In some shots, you can even hear the ice melt – dripping, splashing and floating water. The global sea level will raise 1/2 meter if all the polar ice melts – that gives you something to think about!

This is a beautiful documentary about how the global warming will affect our lives and change the nature we know of. I highly recommend to go watch it. I will amaze you!