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One of the world's largest airships
is taking a team of scientists

and explorers on a unique
expedition.

A voyage deep into one of the most
mysterious and precious

environments on earth.

The atmosphere.

It's in every breath you take.

It is a home to life...

..and it makes the weather.

So, we have this dynamic bubble of
air, constantly moving, constantly

changing and that's what we're here
with Cloud Lab to explore.

This quest is taking the team coast
to coast across America.

So far, they have experienced the
powerful weather systems of

the Southern coast.

You can feel the energy
in the air around you.

It's absolutely fantastic.

Now, they are heading across a
different kind of landscape -

the deserts of the west to the
Pacific Ocean,

to explore three key themes.

Oh, wow!

Life - they will investigate the
relationship between life and the

layers of the atmosphere right up to
the death-zone of high altitude.

We've got every reason to think
that there is life up there.

And the more interesting question,
I guess, is how much is there

and what's it up to?

Climate - they will experience the
surprising way in which the

atmosphere can transform
the ocean...

Another giant-sized animal. This
whole place is like super-sized.

..and human impact -

the ways in which we, ourselves,
are changing the atmosphere.

We've hard evidence that
human beings are creating

their own weather.

Checks for take-off then, please.

INAUDIBLE RADIO CHAT

The Cloud Lab Team are
setting out on the second half

of their epic voyage, heading
west across the United States.

From Texas, they will journey from
airfield to airfield through

the arid west before concluding
the expedition on the Pacific coast.

But as they meet the desert,
there's a dramatic change in the
airship's behaviour.

Expedition leader, Felicity Aston,
wants to know what's causing it.

What's happening with the movement?

We've suddenly started making really
steep climbs and sharp descents.

We've just started getting
some thermals now.

So we are getting these rising
bubbles of air from the surface.

When we fly into it, it lifts
the nose up then as we continue

it lifts the whole body up,
and then as we move further
it lifts the tail up

so we've got a correcting motion
that pushes us back down again.

It's really quite steep. We're
pointing to the sky one minute,

and then down at the floor the next.

It can get quite
extreme at times, yes.

You get used to it.
Really? Like sea-sickness? Yes.

You all right? Yeah.

Despite the discomfort, it's the
airship's ability to fly with the

currents of air that allows the team
to pursue one of their key themes -

the relationship between life
and the atmosphere.

They want to know how conditions
change through the different layers

of the atmosphere and how that
impacts upon the life found there.

So, Felicity and atmospheric
chemist, Dr Jim McQuade,

are fishing for life in the layer of
air that is the most dynamic

and closest to the earth. It's
called the boundary layer.

We've got two - we've got
two different ones.

By flying through this layer, they
hope to shed light on one particular
family of creatures...

He's pretty gorgeous.

..insects.

Whilst we're familiar with the lives
of insects close to the

earth's surface, some have another,
little known existence higher up

in the atmosphere.

The team are going to try and
discover whether they get

blown here accidentally or are they
exploiting atmospheric

conditions found in its
different layers?

Elsewhere, another Cloud Lab
team member

is targeting a different layer of
the atmosphere

and another kind of life.

Microbiologist Dr Chris Van Tulleken
is setting out

to find living bacteria in the high
altitude death zone.

And the microscope I want to do
last, just because it is so dusty.

He's brought in a specialist
researcher, Noelle Bryan,
to help him.

I need to get a sample of sky that's
ten times higher than the samples

we've got before. So we're going up
to almost 30,000 feet from...

you know, the cloud samples were
from about 1,000 and 3,000 feet

so we want to find out if there are
bacteria up there

and that's what Noelle is
very, very expert at.

With this experiment, Chris is
hoping to build upon some remarkable
findings of his.

Earlier in the expedition, he
discovered that the skies are alive.

We've got evidence here that we've
got bacteria in clouds

and that's right at the cutting
edge of science.

Chris not only detected bacteria in
clouds, he revealed that

they played a significant role in
making rain. Now, he's looking

for life beyond the clouds,
upwards of 10,000 feet

to a layer of the atmosphere called
the free troposphere.

Far away from the influence of the
earth's surface,

the free troposphere
is cold, desolate and bone dry.

Even for bacteria, this is an
extreme environment.

Every time you look for a place
where nothing should be able

to survive, there's always
a microbe that can take it,

so that's what we are looking for.

Who is the hardiest,
who is the toughest?

Who can take the desiccation,
the low pressure,

the increased UV radiation?

Humans are wimps.
We have a small temperature range.

We have a very defined
set of environmental conditions

that we can survive.

Perhaps not all humans are wimps.

The free troposphere is far beyond
the flight ceiling of the airship,

so Chris and Noelle have enlisted

the services of former
paratrooper, Andy Torbet.

The idea is that I'm going to jump

out of a plane at about 26,000 feet
and parachute

all the way back down to earth,
collecting samples as I go.

The experiment will involve Andy
attempting a highly technical jump

called a High Altitude High Opening,
or HAHO.

It's usually the preserve
of elite, special forces.

There's a lot of problems
with sky diving from

26,000 feet so people don't do it.

One. The air is so thin, it's very,
very hard to get stable.

You need to get stable within 3-5
seconds in order to open your chute.

If you open your parachute any
longer than sort of 5 seconds,

you pick up so much speed again
because the air is

so thin that when you open you get
what's called a hard opening

and that actually has enough force
to break your spine.

Bearing in mind that when I open
my parachute at

26,000 feet it's going to be
minus 28, minus 30

so it's going to be
bloody cold as well.

And the air is so thin,
there's so little oxygen,

if you don't have an oxygen supply,
like a mask on,

you're going to suffocate
and die within about a minute.

So it's a fairly hostile
environment.

Very little is known about life
at the altitudes Andy is

reaching for but as we look for life
beyond our planet, finding what

can survive earth's extreme habitats
is taking on new significance.

It also requires a novel,
scientific approach.

The principle is presumably going
to be, Andy flies up.

He's got a petri dish or
a growth medium dish.

He opens the lid.

Then closes the lid before he hits
the ground and there's our sample.

But presumably it's a bit more
complicated than that.

The idea is the same.

We're going to have a device
that goes up.

It's going to open.

We're going to catch a sample, close
the doors and bring it back down.

Only, instead of one
surface of a Petri dish,

with these plastic rods we're able
to have 40 different surfaces.

So, it's sealed.
He goes up, opens it,

the air goes over and then before
he hits 10,000 feet, closes.

Seal it back up.

And that's our sample.

Then we bring it back here
and we can work out what it is.

And then we can do all
sorts of different things.

A lot now depends on what Andy
can achieve.

Over the coming days,
he'll put the finishing touches

to weeks of preparation,

working with ex-special forces
skydive master, Dane Kenny.

Two minutes.

Dane will supervise Andy as he jumps
from increasingly high altitudes.

Acclimatising to the changing
nature of the atmosphere.

Cloud Lab biologist, Dr Sarah
Beynon, has joined the expedition

to further the survey
of insect life.

What time is it now? Seven...

For Sarah, it's yielding some
surprising insights into

exactly which insects are found in
the boundary layer,

and at what altitude.

Bear with me. So, that's a flea
beetle.

And I haven't seen any data of these
being found at altitude before.

We had no idea that these
insects were up there.

A lot of what we do know relies on
radar which tells us

what's up there in terms of the
abundance but we have no idea

what makes that up so tiny insects
like this,

we can't tell what species
of insect are up there.

So it's only through deploying
something like this

that we have any idea of what is
flying at those altitudes.

Now, Sarah wants to seek out
evidence for one particular
relationship

between insect and atmospheric
condition.

So I have a spare net, so
I'll put that one in.

OK, thank you.

Can you record the altitude,
as well please Jim, and the time?

What time is it now?

Uh, 7:03. OK.

The aim is to roam
the vastness of the sky to intercept

a noctuid moth, one of a family
of different species.

To do so, they must first wait for
nightfall and a radical

transformation of the atmosphere
called the nocturnal inversion.

How high are we now?
Er, Nine hundred feet.

Nine hundred feet?
Yeah.

As the sun goes down, the air that
sits above the earth cools

more rapidly than the air at high
altitude and that can create

fast-moving streams of air.

Noctuid moths are believed to use
this nocturnal inversion to migrate

as far as 600 miles
in a single night

by selecting the most favourable air
streams...

..but rarely have they been
caught in the process.

Sarah aims to change all that.

The moths at this time of night
should be making their way

up into the higher airspace
to migrate.

So we should catch them
on their journey upwards. Yeah.

The airship's sensitivity to
atmospheric conditions

pays dividends as it drifts with the
air currents.

All they can do now is
sit, wait and hope

that the moths are on their way.

Ooh a moth!

No kidding! No there really is a
moth, where did it go?

Hang on. OK, lights?
I haven't got my net with me.

Shine a light somewhere and keep it
there, to keep the moth to it.

A moth has flown in through the
window.

I need to get a net, OK,
thank you.

Oh, it's here, it's here!

Whoa, whoa -
gosh, where's it gone? There.

OK, could you grab the
killing cloth please?

We've found a moth!

The net isn't collecting them,
but it's just

flown in at 500 feet above the
ground, which means they're here!

OK, we need to be careful as
I need to know what species it is.

I think what we'll do is just
shove the whole net in

to be on the safe side. Awesome!

Teamwork! Excellent!

PILOT: Ready for landing, OK?

Sarah will need to get the moth
under better light to identify it.

Only then can she be sure if it's
one of the migrating noctuid species

taking advantage
of the night-time air.

For the airship's 15-strong ground
support team,

the night has just begun.

After several weeks of flying, the
airship has been venting helium

in order to adjust to different
altitudes. Now it needs topping up.

Well, this is the second rack here
we've probably got at least
two more.

We've been here about an hour so far
so maybe another couple of hours.

Taking care of the airship all the
time - it needs constant attention.

It's a very demanding mistress.

Sarah is drawing together
the haul of insects from the survey.

Already, she's discerning a
difference between the insects that

travel by day and those that travel
by night,

including the one that
flew into the airship.

In the daytime, most of the
insects we caught were small,

like this leaf beetle

and these insects would have been
carried up by the

turbulent daytime air and would have
been at the mercy of the winds.

Whereas at night-time, everything
started to get a bit more

interesting and every single time
we flew at night,

we caught migratory, noctuid moths.

We've got a fall armyworm moth here

and these moths, they migrate
northwards in the spring

and summer to make the most
of the agricultural crops that are

growing and they decimate crops such
as corn and cotton and then they

migrate...well, we think they
migrate southwards again in the fall.

But we know very, very
little about this fall migration

so any individuals we find in the
fall is really, really useful.

The study demonstrates how insects
exploit the varying conditions

of the sky at different altitudes
and times of day.

Other research suggests that insects
exploit the dynamic nature

of the boundary layer on a vast
scale.

So, in a 1km square patch of
countryside surveyed over the course

of a summer month, as many as
3 billion insects pass overhead.

The question remains, how much life
exists

beyond here in the higher
atmosphere?

Is that tight?
Yeah, that's tight.

It's a question Andy hopes to soon
help answer by undertaking

the HAHO jump. At
more than 26,000 feet,

it will be the highest he's
attempted yet.

Remember, the priority
is safe parachuting.

So I know this is very important,

but we can't do that if you've got
an issue with the parachute.

Happy? Happy. Good.

Right, let's get out there.
Look at that.

Steady as a rock
but I shoot with this hand.

You'll be fine, mate.

Andy will have just one attempt to
get the precious air sample,

and with it, a chance of finding
microbial life.

The weather is closing in and safe
conditions

are unlikely to return
for days.

Before going to altitude,

the entire team must flood their
lungs with pure oxygen.

If not, there's a risk that the
nitrogen in their blood

could form bubbles, leading to the
bends.

Without this and other precautions
against

the sub-freezing temperatures and
desperately dry air,

Andy would be dead within seconds.

It raises the question of how ANY
life, even bacteria,

can survive extreme altitudes.

The answer could lie in another form
of microscopic life,

one that has an extraordinary
adaptation to aridity.

These are things called tardigrades
or water bears

and they are unusual because
they're extremely small and they can

survive complete desiccation,
so complete drying out and this is

a desiccated, a dried out tardigrade
here magnified on the microscope.

They are in a state of almost
suspended animation.

The chemical processes that drive
life are at a virtual standstill.

But it takes just a few drops of
water to re-animate it.

When you run water over it, you see
the chemical reactions start

happening again, absorbing the water
and is now very obviously alive.

And it's gone from chemically dead,
chemically totally inert, to now

being, you know, obviously quite
an adorable little living thing.

It's got little legs
and kind of a little face there.

Whilst the transformation is plain
to see,

the secret to the tardigrade's
survival is what's happening within.

We think that the
way the tardigrades survive those

environments is by being able to
tolerate the DNA

and protein damage that
comes from being terribly dried out.

What they have is very,
very good DNA repair mechanisms.

Chris believes that bacteria at high
altitude

may use these same repair mechanisms
to withstand the aridity.

Finding live specimens will go a
long way to suggesting as much.

That now depends on what happens
when Andy meets

the vanishingly thin air.

If Andy can't get stable, he'll have
to free-fall to where the air is
dense enough to slow his descent.

God, he's got a lot to think about.

It's much, much more skilful
than I thought it was.

Andy's botched the exit and is
struggling to get stable.

Despite the poor exit, Andy managed
to open his parachute within

the vital first few seconds.

Now, he has to gather the sample.

The box must be closed at 10,000
feet.

If not, he will expose the sample to
the lower atmosphere

where life can more easily exist.

There he is.

The reason I get Andy to do this is
because he's a much better

microbiologist than
I am a sky diver.

Andy appears to have
pulled off the job.

But there's one thing the team
haven't foreseen

that jeopardises
the entire experiment.

Oooh!

Now, the sample is at risk of
contamination.

You all right, mate?
How you doing?

It was a good landing.

What I wasn't expecting
is my feet were dead.

I had no blood in my feet.
They were numb, really?

Your shoes are freezing cold.
Because I've been

sitting in this harness
20 minutes,

my legs were completely numb
and they just gave way on me.

Well, never mind that, let's make
this safe.

Good. Right I'm going to get this to
the lab. OK, mate, no dramas.

The sense of relief is
just... It was weird.

You don't notice the kind of
the amount of stress or pressure

that's on your shoulders that's
built up over the last three months

until it's taken away.

And suddenly you're like... It's
gone, we've actually done it.

There's an element of kind
of disbelief we've actually

pulled this off.

I got to jump the HAHO

and I managed to pull
it off without seriously

injuring myself or killing myself,
so, er... It was really good.

No-one's ever done
it like this before.

But you know, if you work out how
much of the air up there we've

passed over the rods, we should get
something sticking and all we want

to see is that there's something up
there, you know it's... One

or two bugs and we can amplify them,
grow them, work out what they are.

It's a lovely thought isn't it,
this,

got a little
bit of troposphere in here.

It's really nice.

Noelle! Is this it?

That is it.

Did you think we were going to
get this, honestly?

No.

Andy's slow descent through more
than 16,000 feet

of high-altitude air has given Chris
and Noelle the best chance

of finding microbial life.

It will require forensic precision
to ensure it wasn't in vain.

It's worth explaining that while we
do this, sterile air is

flowing from this all over this
surface so that no bugs can get in.

So even if a piece of hair
falls off Noelle's head,

it won't land on the sample.

This is what I do all day
virtually every day in London.

And I think it puts
a lot of people off doing science

because it seems super mundane
but it isn't.

This is where we...
This is where we get the answers.

The best bit is not the skydiving.

The best bit is the answers.

Now we want to have a
look at it on the microscope.

And in order to look at it, we're
going to stain it with another dye.

We're going to stain it with this
stuff which stains nucleic acid

so, things like DNA. Again, only
life has nucleic acid, so it'll

stain that and then we'll be able
to see the objects more clearly.

Once the sample is stained,

any cells will reflect back the
light emitted from the microscope,

showing up as tiny glimmers of
green.

There you go. You see...

You think there's going to be
nothing there don't you,

you're just looking in to blackness
and then -

what I was hoping to see
and what I can see - is every

once in a while you move the
microscope and that's what you see.

You just get that
little beacon of a green dot.

Just a little green glow.

And each of those
little green dots - those are cells.

The amazing
thing is it's one thing

seeing the DNA glowing in the right
size and shape of a bacteria

but the fact that it's alive,
that is a really peculiar thing.

To find dead bacteria up there
yeah, maybe.

To find living stuff up there is
such a harsh environment.

No oxygen, its freezing cold,
low pressure,

high winds, you know, no water.
No water.

Amazing.

The experiment joins a growing band
of scientific research into life
high in the atmosphere.

The picture that is emerging
is that life is far more
robust than ever imagined.

And that opens up all sorts of
possibilities

for the prospects for life

in other extreme
environments beyond our planet.

PILOT SPEAKS
OVER RADIO

The airship is heading to the
desert city of Phoenix, Arizona.

What's drawing the team here is
another of their key themes,

the way in which we, ourselves,

can change the way the
atmosphere behaves.

Earlier in the expedition, Felicity
and atmospheric chemist,

Dr Jim McQuade, uncovered the
surprising link

between pollution, clouds and
extreme weather.

So what
we're saying is that by cleaning

up our atmosphere, we've allowed
there to be more hurricanes.

They're now hoping that Cloud Lab
will enable them

to get to the bottom of another
question

about our impact on the
atmosphere -

can cities make their own weather?

So, I've been looking
at historical data

and you can see that Phoenix,
in the last 100 years, has gone

from being a really small,
agricultural settlement into
a large, urban city.

In the same period of time,
there has been a distinct

change in the amount
of rainfall in the city.

There are areas of Phoenix
that have had up to

a 12% increase in the amount of
rainfall which is really significant

and it looks like there might be
a correlation between the two.

So, we want to see

if we can unravel how the city might
be creating its own weather.

It's difficult to imagine that a
single city could interfere

with a process that unfolds on such
a grand scale as the weather.

The rain that falls here has
followed the same cycle for
millennia.

Every summer, warm, moist air is
swept up from the oceans

to the South. As this air meets the
hot desert,

variations in the landscape drive
pockets of air upwards as thermals

where the moisture cools,
condenses and ultimately falls

in sudden downpours of rain.

Where this rain occurs should be
fairly random...

..but something appears to be
concentrating it upon the city.

To see why, Felicity is going to
start by surveying temperatures in
Phoenix and the surrounding desert.

I took several readings of the
surface temperature and I was

getting between 37
and 38 degrees centigrade.

So, it's pretty hot down there,

it's soaking up all
the heat from the sun.

For the city to be concentrating
rainfall, it needs to be

hotter than the desert, driving
extra thermal activity.

Meanwhile, Jim is
surveying another factor that
could be increasing rain - humidity.

A hygrometer gives an on-the-spot
reading of how much water vapour

is being carried in the air.

The dry bulb was 24.5, giving

a relative humidity of 26%.

So, the air's very dry here, which
is actually the definition of a
desert.

It's nothing to do with temperature.

It's how dry it is,

so that's why Antarctica can be
classified as a desert.

Unsurprisingly, in the desert,
there's plenty of heat but no water.

But what really matters is how this
picture compares with the city.

OK, another measurement next to an
orange tree

and a lemon tree in someone's
front garden.

It's not like back in Leeds -
got an apple tree.

45% relative humidity.

It's very obvious that there's a lot
more water available to be

evaporating into the atmosphere
just from manicured lawns.

There are lots
of sprinklers down here.

Increased humidity is a consequence
of the millions of gallons of water

diverted to the city from the
surrounding rivers.

I'm getting a real variety in
surface temperatures.

So, if I take a reading from the road
or a car park, it's pretty much the

same surface temperature as in the
desert, but if I point the camera

at a garden or a swimming pool or
a roof top, then it's a lot less.

So, on average, the surface
temperature here will overall

be a lot less than the desert.

The city is more humid and a little
cooler than the surrounding desert.

Despite these differences, there's
no evidence

for the increased thermal activity
that can explain the rainfall.

As the day wears on,
that picture soon changes.

See, look, look, look,
look! See the city...

Yeah.
.it's hotter than the desert.

OK, yeah, you can
see definitely the boundary.

So that's
the desert cooling down

and that's the hot city.

That's a really
nice example of it.

Whilst the natural landscape has
quickly cooled,

the camera reveals the city to have
remained warm.

They've identified an
effect called the urban heat island.

Earlier today we measured the ground
temperature of the suburbs to

be 24, 25 degrees, and see I'm
measuring 23, 22.

I mean, it's still as hot as

when we measured
it in the middle of the day.

The city's surfaces are continuing
to radiate the energy of the sun

they absorbed earlier in the day.

The question is whether the urban
heat island is generating thermals.

If it is,
they should be able to detect

an increase in temperature at
altitude from the airship.

So, I've just had a look
the temperature

and this is the temperature going
down and that's going down simply

because the sun's going down, you
know, we're turning the heater off.

So, this is the temperature
over the desert

and this is the temperature
over the city.

Oh, wow, so this is where we hit the
city? Yeah. OK, this is us...

this is the temperature over
the desert and then

we hit the city limits and the
temperature quite clearly goes up.

It's not a huge increase, you know,
no more than half a degree,

but you can't argue with that.
That's a definite.

Despite the difference in
temperature being small, it's
critical.

It's enough for us
to know that the

air above the city is warmer.

So we've got this big parcel of warm
air sitting over the city.

It makes a lot of logical sense that
that air is going to start rising and

that's going to start convection and
the consequence of that is weather.

So the increased rainfall in Phoenix
could be caused

by the urban heat island effect.

It generates thermals over the city
that force air upward where it

begins to cool.

That, in turn, can cause
the vapour to condense

and form rain concentrated here
upon Phoenix.

So, we've found

the connection we were looking for,
between cities, and the increased

rainfall that Phoenix has been
experiencing in the last 100 years.

And the really exciting
thing about that is that we've hard

evidence that human beings
are creating their own weather.

It's a finding that threatens to
have far-reaching consequences.

Our world is increasingly urban
and much of that urban expansion

is taking place in sparsely
populated arid regions...

..with unknown consequences.

If you take an area
of desert and build a city on it,

then that city is going to be much
warmer than the desert it's replaced.

And it's going to have an overall
warming effect.

So if you multiply that by all
the cities being built in desert

areas, all this turning from desert
land into green agricultural,

irrigated land, then it leaves
another little hanging question,

whether this is having a much larger
global effect on our climate.

The airship has reached the
western edge of the desert.

Beyond here lies
their destination...

..the mighty Pacific, where the team
want to conduct their final

set of studies.

An exploration of how the prevailing
onshore Pacific wind shapes

the wildlife of the entire
Californian coastline.

And that includes the life
below the ocean surface.

But first, the airship will have to
overcome the Pacific wind.

We're so close to the
end of our journey that we can

almost smell the Pacific Ocean.

But there's one last obstacle.
These mountains behind me.

There's only one pass through these
mountains for miles in either
direction.

It's called Banning Pass and it's a
bit of a problem for the airship

because it's so narrow.
All the winds are funnelled through.

And the winds come from the west
towards us so it's going to be flying

into the winds and if there's too
much wind, it could take hours, days.

Perhaps we could even be
waiting for a week

until conditions are just right.

Even if the wind is blowing
a gentle breeze on the far

side of the pass, by the time it
reaches the entrance

the funnelling effect can accelerate
it to gale force.

We seem to be hitting
a lot of turbulence.

The wind is gusting and
coming down the valley here.

There's two big mountain ranges
coming together to give us

just this one little gap down
the middle, so it's much
rougher air now.

So you are really
having to fight to keep it level?

It's a continuous fight

but at the moment we're
making slow progress.

OK, so what's our ground
speed at the minute?

About five knots.
Five knots? 6mph.

It's very bizarre. We
are in this unseen jet stream of air.

So these engines are going fast
enough to propel us at 30-40 knots,

but unfortunately the wind's
coming in the opposite direction

at 30-35 knots, so we're only making
only 2 or 3 knots ground speed.

We've barely moved at all.
About two miles in the last hour.

Co-pilot: It's actually getting worse
right at the moment.

We've actually stopped.

I don't think we're going to be
going through today.

The vast wind farm here one of the
largest in Southern California

is testament to the winds
near-constant presence.

We're definitely starting
to move forward.

Back there we were not,

now we are definitely moving
forward a wee bit.

CO-PILOT: Yeah, there we go. We are
going it a little bit here.

Despite Felicity's worst fears
it seems as though they have

chosen the right day to make
their move.

Sarah has gone ahead of the airship
to experience the power of the

onshore Pacific wind for
herself.

We are going to do a little
bit of scratching here,

when we are close to the cliff edge.

And scratching is doing what?

Well, when we are very close to
the edge of the cliff... Like this?

Yeah. Scratching is our term.

This is where the most lift is,
close to the cliff edge.

Sarah and Kirk are being
carried on a type of air

movement known as ridge lift.

As the onshore wind hits
the cliff, it is diverted

and accelerated upward.

But the real reason Sarah is here
is to see how this movement of air

supports life.

Home! Shanty!

Good girl.

Oh, wow! Unbelievable, huh? Oh!

So this is Shanty,
who is a trained bird

and she's using the same updraught
that we're using. Up!

Shanty is a Harris hawk.

A native to this region, they are
so highly evolved to

fly on the movement of air from
ridge lift to rising thermals

much of their flight time is
spent soaring.

Wow!

You can really see her wide,
fairly short wings

and that's an adaptation to soaring.

Look at her soaring up there now.

And it's great to see the sort
of finger-tips of her wings that

she's using to control her flight.

It's a behaviour found throughout
the family of birds called raptors

that also includes eagles
and vultures, enabling them

to extend their range to vast
distances.

It makes sense
for them to use these up-draughts

so that they expend as little energy
as possible when they are hunting.

Exactly. And the raptors own
motto, like any good predator,

is the maximum amount of reward
for the least amount of effort.

So if they can stay up without
putting much energy into it,

that's great.

Here she comes again.
Goodness me.

Good girl!

Hang on, it's the Pacific,
it's the sea!

You should have your bikini on, we
should be there in swimming trunks!

We've made it.

This is the ocean, we've made it.
Fantastic!

So, Atlantic to Pacific.

It's not quite journeys' end.

The team have chosen this particular
destination to explore

a surprising relationship between
life and the Pacific wind.

What's that there!?
Ah, yes!

What is it then go on? A Blue
Whale.

Is it really? Really.

I've never seen a Blue Whale before.
Look at that. Wow!

Hang on, there's more than one.
There's two of them.

These are just the first indications
of what they have come to see

because the wind can make
habitats in the ocean too.

This is Monterey Bay, California.

Beneath its gleaming surface is a
uniquely fertile eco system...

..that makes this one of the
most biodiverse habitats in the
earth's oceans.

There you go, there you go. There's
two more of them right there.

The charismatic megafauna.
Charismatic megafauna.

Chris and Andy have joined
local marine biologist,

Steve Lonhart, to understand how
this rich environment is

created by the wind.

If you can imagine
the wind which is coming from

the northwest, so kind of over our
shoulder, moving in this direction.

As it moves that way,

it actually just pushes the warm
waters of the surface off,

and then you get this really cool
nutrient rich water that's coming

up from the bottom, right where we
are, right here, coming up from

the bottom and that's sort of
like...you can think of it like
fertiliser.

Meaning dead sea lions, dead kelp,

anything that dies, birds,
all falls to the bottom?

Falls to the bottom,

and it is broken down into all
its little constituent members,

that eventually just
dissolve into the water.

When the water comes up, its
clear, which allows things like kelp

and seaweeds, to do what they do
which is photosynthesise.

Just like plants on land nitrogen,

carbon, building blocks of life.

And instead of those things
being in the air and the soil,

they're dissolved in the water.
That's right.

Then you have a forest,
not on land,

it's actually on the shore.

To see the result of this process
in its full majesty you have to

look beneath the surface...

..and to the unique
environment that it creates.

The forest of giant kelp.

Not only does the kelp
benefit from the nutrients drawn

up from the depths,

it is also bathed in the energy
of the sun, allowing it to

reach 175 feet in height.

Ah, so these are the giant kelp.

You see the little bubbles?

Awesome, and that's what holds
the giant kelp up.

Chris, this is Andy.
Go ahead. Over.

Every square inch of this
entire system all the rocks,

the nooks, the crannies
- are all teeming with life.

There's not a square inch that's
left bare and barren.

There's life everywhere.
Outstanding again.

How does this compare with other
dives you've done?

This whole place
is like a normal sort of temperate

reef but just much, much,
much bigger.

Everything has been super-sized.

It's huge.

It seems like all the life

down there is scaled-up enormously
because of this nutrient-rich water.

I've just seen
the biggest anemone I've ever

seen in my life. It's huge.

I've never seen an anemone that
I would consider a man-eater,

but if there ever was one,
this is it.

This is probably the best sight
so far. I'm coming up.

I'm rising up the trunks of these
huge, giant kelp.

Whilst this may be a very
special environment, it also

vividly demonstrates the power of
the atmosphere to reach into every

corner of the planet and make it a
place for life.

For me, it really provides an
insight into just how
complex the atmosphere is.

It's not just something that we
breathe and that produces

weather, it has the ability to shape
the landscape underneath it.

It plays a huge part in forming the
environments in which we all live.

Reaching the Pacific brings to an
end what has been an extraordinary

and unique adventure.

This epic journey coast to coast

has enabled the team to experience
the atmosphere as never before.

That's the one I want!
That one!

They've explored the extraordinary
processes that generate weather...

20 million. So, that small cloud
weighed four tonnes? Yes.

That's incredible. It is.

..they've seen some of the many ways
that life - at every scale

from microscopic bacteria...

Now we are sucking in the cloud.

..to more familiar species exploit
each level of the atmosphere...

Good luck, little one.

These waterfronts, they are vital
for movement,

not just on a small scale,
but on a global scale.

..and they've revealed the often
complex mechanisms by which

we, ourselves, are shaping
this realm.

Cheers, everyone! Cheers, guys.

Cheers!
To the Pacific!