Season 3

With marine biologist Uli Kunz, we travel to the Arctic and explore the water worlds around the world’s largest island: we show how polar bears and different whale species cope in this extreme habitat. The ice shark lives in the eternal darkness of the deep sea – and lives up to 500 years, older than any other vertebrate. Uli Kunz visits scientists in a very special research camp: in the middle of the Greenland ice sheet, they have pitched their tents to study climate change and a small algae in detail. Uli Kunz guides us through this special habitat and explores the phenomena of the Arctic: How do the mythical auroras come about? How do plants and animals protect themselves from freezing? And what is it about the strange pillars that grow out of the seabed in the Ikka Fjord?

The Chagos Archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean is part of the largest coral atoll in the world. The biodiversity underwater is enormous. Together with a team of researchers, marine biologist and Terra-X presenter Uli Kunz explores nature above and below the water. Far from any continent, scientists are looking for answers to crucial questions: How healthy are coral reefs where there is hardly any human influence? Which species are found: in the water and on land? And what are the consequences of climate change even in such a remote island paradise? The research in the Chagos Archipelago has great significance for other regions of the world as well. Because almost everywhere, corals are under heat stress. More than half of the reefs are severely endangered – and researchers are trying to help the corals. Marine biologists from Saudi Arabia and Germany are working together on new therapies for corals in the Red Sea.