August 2003. The hottest month ever observed in France but also most fatal. During fifteen days, historical temperatures will cause a medical catastrophe without precedent. 14 802 direct victims of heat will be officially listed... But what did it occur during this August 2003? Could we envisage, avoid all these deaths? How intense heat can suddenly become a threat and endanger our health? How to protect and fight heat? "Alarm heat wave" proposes to answer these questions.

"That's the realisation of an old dream, crossing the North Pole aboard an immobile ship, carried by the movements of the drift of the pack-ice… exposed to marvellous things and to the forces of nature."

The film introduces to us the hidden meaning of a scientific image, reconstructing its missing caption: what the picture represents, why it was made and who uses it.

Satellite image of the Pacific Ocean before the arrival of "El Nino".