Polar Cap Productions, Inc.
PRODUCTION OFFICE
120 Eglinton Avenue East,
10th Floor
Toronto, ON. M4P 1E2
CANADA

Tel: 416-480-1996 ext. 6046
Fax: 416-322-2877
Email: info@polarcapproductions.com

CBC Promo: 30 seconds. Click image to play

Polar Cap Productions is a new film and television production company with a mandate to tell entertaining and educational stories about our environment and, in particular, our fragile polar ice caps: the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Climate change has registered significant change to the caps and these changes have a profound environmental effect on all of us. According to the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States the earth has experienced a rise in global temperature of about half a degree Celsius over the past 100 years. This apparently modest increase over the past century is responsible for a rise in the world’s sea level of six to eight inches.

Antarctica holds approximately 90 per cent of the world’s ice and has been measured to be at least 7,000 feet thick. If all of the Antarctic ice melted, sea levels around the world would rise about 200 feet. But the average temperature in Antarctica is -37°C, so the ice there is in no danger of melting. In fact in most parts of the continent it never gets above freezing.

The Arctic contains much less ice and most of it floats on the Arctic Ocean, the world’s smallest ocean (about eight per cent the size of the Pacific Ocean). Unlike Antarctica, people live here with the farthest northern city in the world being Norlisk, Russia, home to an estimated 230,000 hearty souls.

In 1995 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report which contained various projections of the sea level change by the year 2100. They estimate that the sea will rise 20 inches with the lowest estimates at six inches and the highest at 37 inches. The rise will come from thermal expansion of the ocean and from melting glaciers and ice sheets.

March 2007 to March 2009 is International Polar Year (IPY), a large scientific program focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic. IPY, organized through the International Council for Science (ICSU) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), is actually the fourth polar year, following those in 1882-3, 1932-3, and 1957-8. In order to have full and equal coverage of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, IPY 2007-8 covers two full annual cycles from March 2007 to March 2009 and will involve more than 200 projects, with thousands of scientists from more than 60 nations examining a wide range of physical, biological and social research topics. It is also an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate, follow, and get involved with, cutting edge science in real-time.

And that’s where we come in. We plan to produce a special HD documentary on Antarctica and some of the unique programs being carried out there to educate the world about this fascinating region. Through our film productions and this website, we hope to contribute to the goals of International Polar Year now and for a long time to come.