Caught in the Grip of Ice: Arctic Expeditions and Climate Science

Join the Pulitzer Center’s 2023 Persephone Miel Fellow, Meral Jamal, for a special screening and discussion of the PBS documentary Beneath the Polar Sun.

Audience members are encouraged to pre-watch the film on PBS and then join a special conversation Thursday, April 13th at 6PM ET with Arctic-based reporter Jamal, filmmaker and expedition leader Stephen Smith, and polar oceanographer Chris Horvat. 

Beneath the Polar Sun reveals firsthand what is happening in the Arctic. While much of the oldest Arctic ice is already gone, what remains is a stronghold of precious ice found along the northern shores of Canada and Greenland. It is this last ice area that attracts a scientific team to measure the world’s oldest ice floes. 

Following routes that were navigable only years earlier, this scientific expedition soon becomes a witness to Earth’s most pressing existential threat. Trapped in a frozen maelstrom—the very ice floes they came to study—something has to give.

The science is scuttled, what matters now is survival. They must escape the chaos by traversing a narrow channel between Canada and Greenland—the most formidable passage of the polar North. 

Beneath the Polar Sun will be premiering in primetime on the PBS World Channel, beginning April 18. The film is also appearing on local PBS stations nationwide throughout April.

There will be Earth Day (April 22) and primetime broadcasts in the top markets: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Boston, and Seattle.