ANDREW LINCOLN: Our weather is wilder...
..fiercer...
..more unpredictable...
..than ever before.
JOURNALIST: Rare red weather warnings
meaning there's a potential danger to life.
Such weather is more frequent and intense.
I think we had this conversation in our newsroom, you know,
when they were evacuating all the people...
what about the animals?
For the first time...
..we see the planet's most extreme weather...
..through their eyes.
When nature turns against them...
..they're not just enduring...
..they are fighting back...
..in remarkable ways.
The bigger the storm...
..the greater the heroes.
GROWLS
TRUMPETS
These animals are... a force of nature.
JOURNALIST: This storm in particular
is rapidly rotating right now.
And it looks like it's about to drop an even bigger tornado.
AUTOMATED: If you are outdoors,
move to the closest substantial shelter.
You have a basement, great.
Seek shelter immediately. To keep you and your family safe.
The Great Plains...
..of North America.
More than 40 million acres of wild grasslands.
Exposed and without a tree in sight...
..it's the last place you'd expect...
..to find an owl.
Every spring, this wily female...
..and her partner for life...
..fly 1,700 miles from Mexico to be here.
OWL SCREECHES
Because this neighbourhood has everything they need...
..to raise a new family.
Five inquisitive chicks...
..just one month old.
It'll be another five weeks before they can look after themselves.
Until then...
..Dad's on dinner duty.
Mum's job... OWL SCREECHES
..is to keep them all safe.
But there's always one...
..pushing the boundaries.
These grasslands...
..are bursting with over 10,000 species of insect.
Plenty to tempt a rookie hunter.
But catching them takes practice.
Change... is in the air.
With all five of her chicks scattered far and wide...
OWL SCREECHES
..keeping them all safe...
..is about to get a whole lot harder.
The low-frequency rumble of infrasound...
DISTANT RUMBLING
..signals the approach.
..of a monster.
JOURNALIST: This storm is rapidly rotating right now.
You need to be in your storm shelter.
This is definitely gonna be causing damage as it continues
to move to the east, north-east.
AUTOMATED: If you are outdoors, take cover now.
THUNDER RUMBLES
Storms are intensifying across America's Midwest.
Move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself
from flying debris.
They're producing more frequent cluster bombs of tornadoes.
This is a very serious situation.
This is a real live tornado.
This experienced mother...
..will need her wits about her...
..to keep her chicks alive.
As the planet warms...
..every kind of weather...
..is getting wilder. THUNDERCLAP
JOURNALIST: The planet experienced its hottest year ever.
Scientists say that we're entering a new era.
Oh, BLEEP!
Catastrophic flooding that used to happen perhaps once a century
could soon be an annual event.
Even in places often thought of as dry...
JOURNALIST: An update now on the extreme flooding out of Kenya.
..it now pours.
JOURNALIST: Record-level floods at the Maasai Mara National Reserve
can now be revealed.
And cheetahs are in over their heads.
These ten-year-old cheetah brothers...
..have survived this long...
..by sticking together.
ELEPHANT RUMBLES
But they've never experienced rain like this.
A month's worth...
..in just one day.
Their prey has retreated north of the river...
..to higher ground.
But they're cut off by a torrent...
..and boxed in by bigger...
THUNDERCLAP
..more powerful enemies.
But these old boys have learnt a few tricks.
They check all their usual crossing points.
But despite a break in the rains...
..the river still runs dangerously high.
Cats don't like water at the best of times.
CHEETAHS GROWL
CHEETAH GROWLS
Lean bodied... cheetahs are weak swimmers.
The older brother is falling behind.
CHEETAH GROWLS
ANDREW LINCOLN: The cheetah brothers have beaten the floods.
But for the older, weaker one, the ordeal is far from over.
Lions will kill a cheetah to eliminate the competition.
It could be the last time he sees his brother alive.
Across our warming planet...
..animals are battling new extremes of weather.
But things are hotting up fastest...
..at the poles.
JOURNALIST: The latest assessment
of the once reliably frozen Arctic...
It's kind of a sea change.
Temperatures there are rising at three times the global average.
So, the Arctic is warming at around three,
in some cases maybe four times faster than the rest of the globe.
The ice sheets, they're melting at an accelerating rate.
Spring has arrived two weeks early in the Arctic.
POLAR BEAR GROWLS
This young female polar bear survived the winter,
hunting seals out on the sea ice.
But the solid platform she relies on...
..is disappearing...
..along with her chances of a meal.
To eat, she must head to shore...
..to track down new prey.
With spring earlier than ever...
..ample grass feeds growing numbers of Svalbard reindeer.
An opportunity...
..if she can close the distance.
Stalking more like a leopard than a bear.
Weighing quarter of a tonne...
..she can't keep up.
GROWLS
If she's to survive the long summer ahead...
..she'll have to push her body to the limit.
A warming Arctic...
..has far-reaching consequences for our weather.
MAN: The polar vortex is very cold,
but when it starts to get warmer, it disrupts the jet stream.
As cold air is pushed thousands of miles south...
..it collides with warmer currents...
..spinning out of control.
Unleashing...
CRASH
..devastation.
JOURNALIST: It is a large tornado,
so you need to be in your storm shelter.
This is definitely gonna be causing damage.
Tornadoes are growing more powerful each year.
With Dad off hunting...
..and her five flightless chicks scattered across the plains...
..it's down to Mum...
..to save the day.
And she's storm ready.
She chose her neighbours wisely.
Prairie dogs...
..who've dug out a whole town... CHIRPING
..underground.
Mum bagged a burrow for her brood
and will not be giving it up.
OWL CHIRPS
She's got 13 known calls.
OWL CHIRPS
But this... OWL CHIRPS
..is the most important.
"Get back home.
"Now!"
CHIRPING
That's four back safe and sound.
WIND HOWLS
But her most adventurous chick...
CHIRPS
..is still out there...
..somewhere.
Mum must save herself...
..for the good of her family.
Animals are facing wilder weather than ever before...
..amplified...
..by heat trapped in our atmosphere...
..from the most powerful force...
..in the solar system.
JOURNALIST: It's definitely coming. Get ready for some extreme heat.
JOURNALIST: It's West Africa's worst heat wave in living memory.
As global temperatures rise...
JOURNALIST: The heat wave there has been devastating.
Animals are dying. It's a really big deal.
..the hottest regions on Earth...
ENGINE RUMBLES
..are only getting tougher.
JOURNALIST: This drought with this type of heat
has not happened before.
Pushing our closest living relatives...
..to take the fight for survival...
..underground.
Savannah chimpanzees...
..can't survive more than a week without water.
After six months of drought in Senegal...
..the fruit trees are almost bare.
Pushing their new 18-year-old leader out on a limb.
When water is this hard to come by...
..peace...
..turns...
..to violence.
SCREECHING
Order must be restored...
..if they are to survive...
and find water.
But the rivers across their territory...
..have run dry.
Finally...
INSECTS BUZZING
..a few foetid puddles.
Not safe to drink.
But, undeterred, these clever chimps dig holes...
..and let the water seep through the gravel...
..filtering out 90% of the harmful bacteria.
Chimpanzees are one of the only animals capable
of such sophisticated survival techniques...
..passed down through the generations.
But these meagre puddles will soon disappear.
Responsibility weighs heaviest...
..on their young leader.
He knows of another place there might be water.
But his youthful readiness for risk could prove reckless.
JOURNALIST: As heavy rain and flooding have continued,
more heartbreak and destruction in Kenya.
Intense overnight rains...
..piled on to the flooding crisis in the country.
ANDREW LINCOLN: In one of the wettest months on record...
..the cheetah's beginning to realise
the brother he's hunted with all his life...
..is never coming back.
Taking down big prey on his own will be even harder.
But this crafty old cat...
..can use the heavy rains...
..to tip the odds in his favour.
Prey turn their backs to the storm...
..and rain dampens their senses...
..so he can sneak up closer than ever.
Using his tail like a rudder, he locks on.
This veteran hunter may be alone...
..but he has turned the extreme weather to his advantage.
But to make it in a changing Arctic...
..the young polar bear is having to go against her very being.
A small, solitary reindeer.
She uses the ridge to mask her approach.
GROWLING
She's lost the upper hand...
..but won't give up the chase.
Driving her quarry...
..into... a dead end.
SPLASH
It's a long way down to retrieve her dinner.
While polar bear numbers are in decline...
POLAR BEAR GROWLS
..the bears in Svalbard may be on the rise...
..thanks to their ability to adapt and to hunt on land.
Sheltering in their bunker...
..the owl mum has kept four of her chicks alive.
But the walls will have to hold strong.
RUMBLING
Overhead is a twister...
..with the energy of 10,000 tonnes of dynamite.
CHICKS SCREECH
And her most adventurous chick...
..is still out there.
THUNDER RUMBLING
On the American prairies...
..one of the most extreme storms on the planet...
..has finally passed.
CHICKS SCREECHES
OWL CHIRPS
There's no sign of her lost chick.
OWL CHIRPS
But incredibly...
..he found his own bunker to hide in.
Although the whole ordeal has been quite unsettling.
A huge pellet of indigestible insect parts.
Seems his first hunting trip alone was a little hard to stomach.
SCREECHES
Time...
..to face the music.
CHICK SCREECHES
Preening helps restore a bit of trust.
And Dad's back too.
This little family has weathered the storm.
But in the last 30 years,
the burrowing owl population here has halved.
It's an uncertain future for even the wisest of mums.
In one of the longest droughts they've ever known...
..the chimps have been searching for water for days.
The pressure is on for their young leader.
He's taking the troop on a daring raid...
..into an unfamiliar world...
..full of danger.
A gold mine.
ENGINE STARTS
As the workers down tools for the day...
..the troop make their move.
The camp is pockmarked...
..with unstable mine shafts.
Deep wells...
..with a prize far more precious than gold.
In a brand-new behaviour never filmed before...
..their leader descends first.
Entering a maze of hand-dug tunnels
up to 30m below ground.
The troop's fate rests with him.
Now the rest of the troop can follow his lead.
Even the little ones...
..finally get to drink their fill.
On this extreme Earth,
clever and resourceful animal heroes
are finding remarkable ways to stay alive.
They are a force of nature.