Paul Rose presents 'Meltdown'

BAFTA: MELTDOWN NOMINATED FOR 2007 BAFTA - INTERACTIVE CATEGORY

The keynote programme for BBC climate change season.

Meltdown – A Global Warming Journey with Paul Rose
Paul Rose is a modern-day explorer. He’s spent many years in Antarctica and the Arctic, organising scientific expeditions. Now he sees evidence that the polar regions are in danger - from climate change. So he decides to try and find out the truth about global warming: what's really going on with our climate, and what's it going to mean for the future?

He starts by asking how the climate has changed in the past. Are the changes we’re seeing now part of a natural cycle, or are they something we’ve brought upon ourselves? And what can Viking voyages, the freezing of the Thames and ancient Bronze Age settlements on Dartmoor tell us abut how our climate is changing?

His quest comes up against a fundamental problem - a lack of computing power necessary to model what effect global warming will have in the future. But he meets a scientist with a brilliant idea. By making use of your computer - and thousands like it all over the world - we can carry out the largest climate experiment ever, and work out what is really going to happen to our climate over the next 50 years.

www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/programmes1.shtml

BBC ivites viewers to predict the UK’s future climate
The BBC is to screen a major season of programmes on the science behind and issues surrounding the hottest topic of the day - Climate Change.

To launch its Climate Chaos Season the BBC, in conjunction with Oxford University and the Open University, is inviting its audience to participate in the biggest online experiment ever undertaken to predict the future climate of the UK.

By logging on to www.bbc.co.uk/climatechange viewers will help scientists project possible climate scenarios for the UK up to the year 2080.

Meltdown and a unique experiment
The first stage of the Climate Chaos season kicks off on February 20 when BBC Four screens Meltdown, a film in which explorer and presenter Paul Rose shows the effects of global warming in Greenland and tells the story of climate changes in the UK. Paul meets Oxford scientist Myles Allen and learns about his work predicting how the UK’s climate will change. At the end of the film Paul invites viewers to participate in the unique experiment by logging onto the BBC website.

Those logging on will be taken by Paul through steps to download a piece of software which connects to a server at Oxford University, and which downloads an individualised version of the Met Office’s state-of-the art global climate model.

The climate model will use the computer’s spare processing time – when the user is not actively working on it but still has it switched on - to make calculations and produce a possible future climate scenario for the UK. Once the programme is downloaded the user doesn’t have to do anything - the computer does all the work, and uploads data back to Oxford automatically.

Those participating can keep track of what is going on by bringing up graphics that show them what year their individual model has reached, and what the temperature is. They can also set the graphics as a screensaver.

Back in Oxford, scientists will collate the results which will be revealed in a follow-up programme in the summer. Participants can join the experiment at any point- even after the programme has transmitted – but the earlier the better. A standard off-the-shelf computer takes around three months to run the complete simulation to 2080, but project scientists can make use of runs as short as ten model years, taking only a week or so, and the more people participate the more accurate a prediction they will be able to make.

Climate Chaos
Meltdown will be followed in the same week by Climate Conspiracy or Global Catastrophe? which explores the truth behind global warming headlines and Reports from the Front Line of Global Warming a series of short eyewitness accounts of living with global warming, all on BBC Four.

Together with the BBC Four results show the Climate Chaos season returns in the summer with a whole week of programmes across BBC Television channels.

On BBC One Sir David Attenborough undertakes a personal investigation to discover how global warming is changing our world. In a two-part documentary he scrutinises the evidence and asks crucial questions about how and why global warming is affecting the planet. Panorama investigates the reasons behind President Bush's rejection of the scientific consensus around climate change. Is it Big Oil talking or is he right to resist what one of his supporters has described as ‘the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people’? And viewers can gauge their individual knowledge of climate change matters with a special Test the Nation.

On BBC Two The Money Programme looks at the economics of going green; If…The Oil Runs Out asks what we can do about our ‘addiction to oil’; and a special film shows how six cities across the globe are preparing for climate change.

Horizon examines the case being made for nuclear power.

In addition to individual programming there will be contributions from BBC news and weather; from children’s programme and from the BBC interactive sites and pages.

Says Jana Bennett, BBC Director of Television: ‘We know from research that climate change is a subject many viewers are concerned about and regard as a major problem for themselves and the next generation and yet they also feel that they don’t know enough about it. They look to television, in particular, to inform them and help them make sense of it. The Climate Chaos Season seeks to engage and inform viewers about Climate change – with programmes across our networks in the biggest interactive season of science programmes ever'.

Paul Rose launched the BBC Climate Change season in 2006 with the keynote programme Meltdown on Monday 20th February at 9:00 pm on BBC4 & on BBC 2 Tuesday 14th March at 8:00pm

www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/programmes1.shtml

www.bbc.co.uk/climatechange