Documenting the great melt of the Arctic sea

As spring finally reaches the north of the planet air temperatures creep above freezing. In order to film the annual retreat of the Arctic sea, Frozen Planet II filmed on a scale not attempted before, including using microscopes to film ice cracking, motion controlled time lapse tracks, repeated seasonal drone flights, and ultimately directed satellites to film a timelapse of the great melt on a global scale.

For millennia the Arctic Ocean has frozen over in the winter and then gradually melted throughout the spring and the summer. But in the last 40 years the extent of the summer sea ice has declined by 50%. Some predict that it’ll be ice free as early as 2035.