The Big Picture: Extreme Earth

Product Information

Climate change from a human-caused rise in greenhouse gases is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. In this episode we are taken to places where life exists on a knife edge. What was the most challenging sequence to film in such extremes?

By comparison, the Sahara Desert – the world's largest hot desert – receives 100–250 mm (4–10 in) of precipitation on average annually.No matter how far we evolve in protecting ourselves from the elements, we are continuously reminded by extreme weather events that we will always be at their mercy. Oklahoma belongs to the strip of states in the Great Plains of the USA known as “Tornado Alley”. Tornadoes are more intense and more frequent here than in any other region on Earth. Farthest distance survived in a tornado On 18 January 2003, a fire tornado formed in the plume of the McIntyres Hut Fire, part of the January 2003 Canberra fires in Australia.

As Earth’s climate changes, it is impacting extreme weather across the planet. Record-breaking heat waves on land and in the ocean, drenching rains, severe floods, years-long droughts, extreme wildfires, and widespread flooding during hurricanes are all becoming more frequent and more intense.

Find a Scheme of Work

Huddling can be a survival superpower, especially in the winter cold of the Atlas Mountains. For a young barbary macaque, separated from the group, it’s vital to find and re-join the huddle before nightfall, but there is a surprising obstacle in his way. The ultimate huddle is found in the mountains of Mexico where millions of monarch butterflies are overwintering. But the calm is shattered when a storm hits their forest shelter. On 31 October 2019, a single lightning flash spanned a horizontal distance of 709 km (440.6 mi), from north-eastern Argentina and across southern Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean. Supercells are powerful thunderstorms that form around a mesocyclone (a deep, rotating updraft). They can be several kilometres across and may last several hours, making them the largest thunderstorms in the world as well as the longest-lasting thunderstorms.