35 mins, 2008        [password required] Key Topics Climate Change Environment Global Warming What is global warming? What is the evidence for it? How will it affect the world? This film explores these questions as it follows an icebreaker ship on a trip to the Arctic Circle. MELTING ICE: The Arctic Ice Sea, a plate of ice roughly the size of Europe, is disappearing. Scientists say that by 2013, there will be no sea-ice left in the Arctic, causing a tipping point for climate change throughout the world. Polar bears, who are at the top of the Arctic food chain, are feeling the heat. As the sea ice shrinks, so does their world. PERMAFROST: The forests of Alaska are suffering, too. Alaska's vast pine forests rest on a layer of solid permafrost and when the frost melts the ground literally gives way. "The Arctic will export change to the rest of the world," warns one expert, "bringing violent storms and cyclones." THE COLD RUSH: Canadian coastguards predict that it will not be long before the legendary Northwest Passage through the Arctic will be completely ice-free. And that's fuelling a new "cold rush" as businesses eye the vast oil and mineral reserves which, until now, have been locked beneath the melting ice. Is this something the world will go to war over? DVD EXTRA: "Wake Up, Freak Out , Then Get A Grip" - an extraordinary animated film about climate change by Leo Murray, made with the assistance of staff from the Royal College of Art.