Frozen Planet

The ultimate portrait of the earth's Polar Regions.

The Arctic and Antarctic remain the greatest wildernesses on Earth. The scale and beauty of the scenery and the power of the elements - the weather, the ocean and the ice - is unmatched anywhere else on our planet.

The Poles are also home to many of the most charismatic animals from polar bears to emperor penguins and from wolves to wandering albatrosses. Using the latest camera technology on land, from the air and underwater, Frozen Planet will capture the drama of their lives in the most intimate detail.

Four years in the making, the programme makers have embarked on the most ambitious polar expedition of our age, enlisting international logistics on an unprecedented scale. Russian nuclear submarines take them deep under the ice, Royal Naval helicopters air-lift them into giant ocean swells, and US ice-breakers voyage further into the frozen seas then ever before. Once there, they must endure the biggest seasonal change on our planet from flesh-freezing polar winters to the unpredictable dangers of the summer 'melt' as they struggle to film animal behaviour and landscapes that have never been seen before.

Both Poles are melting fast - this may be the last chance to see these great wildernesses before they change for ever.

Frozen Planet will be broadcast in 2011 on BBC One.