Svalbard, a desolate archipelago in the far reaches of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway, became inextricably entwined with climate science in 1930 when a landmark research paper was published on rising temperatures on its largest island, Spitsbergen. This ruminative video essay traces Svalbard’s complex history over the past century, during which it has been a hub for science, war and global commerce, and a reflection of the potential for human cooperation and destruction.
War, commerce, research. How the Arctic became the epicentre of climate science
Video by Studiocanoe

videoEcology and environmental sciences
Close-ups reveal how caterpillars live long enough to cocoon
9 minutes

videoHistory of science
Insect aesthetics – long viewed as pests, in the 16th century bugs became beautiful
8 minutes

videoHistory of science
How we came to know the size of the Universe – and what mysteries remain
26 minutes

videoEcology and environmental sciences
Join endangered whooping cranes on their perilous migratory path over North America
6 minutes

videoArt
Defying classification, fantastical artworks reframe the racism of Carl Linnaeus
8 minutes

videoEnvironmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes

videoHistory of science
Meet the Quaker pacifist who shattered British science’s highest glass ceilings
14 minutes

videoNature and landscape
‘A culture is no better than its woods’ – what our trees reveal about us, by W H Auden
5 minutes

videoHistory of science
Ideas ‘of pure genius’ – how astronomers have measured the Universe across history
29 minutes