The Day the Oceans Boiled

Programmes

• Moon Machines
• In the Shadow of the Moon
• The Underwater Dream Machine
• Nuclear Nightmares
• Hitler's Sunken Secret
• Global Dimming
• Project Poltergeist
• Magnetic Flip
• The Secret of El Dorado
• Rocket Men of Mission 105
• The Day the Oceans Boiled
• Hunt for the Death Star
• The Great Dog Race
• Einstein's Biggest Blunder

First transmitted on Channel Four / Equinox, December 2001

How changes to the world’s forests and oceans could trigger a rapid acceleration of global warming

55 million years ago, something strange happened to life on Earth: many animals suddenly shrank, with horses becoming the size of modern domestic cats. The reason was a dramatic rise in global temperatures. Venturing to the Bad Lands of Wyoming, the polar ice caps and the Amazon Rainforest, this film follows the scientists searching for the cause of the sudden climate shifts which have punctuated Earth history, and examines the worrying evidence that natural processes could soon cause a dramatic acceleration of present-day global warming.