If you think a sunseeker is someone who likes lounging on Caribbean or Mediterranean beaches, meet Joern Dybdahl. In the southern summer, the 46-year old Norwegian works in Antarctica as a technician at a research station. The rest of the year he is on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen — so he almost always lives in the land of the midnight sun."It's a special life — it's not for everyone," said the tanned trained welder of his extreme sunseeker lifestyle in two workplaces 17,000 km (10,560 miles) apart. "It's because I'm scared of the dark," he joked.Dybdahl is in his fourth summer atthe Troll research station, 250 km (155 miles) inland, amid jagged mountains that remind Norwegians of the homes of the troll giants of fables. In Svalbard, he works at a horse-riding centre.
Several colleagues share his Arctic-Antarctic double-life — only eight of them stay at Troll through the Antarctic winter.
I met him on
a 36-hour visit where I, by contrast, found even "summer" harsh enough
— especially since I had to sleep in a tent in bone-chilling
temperatures of about minus 15 Celsius (5.00F).
Our whole party of 40
officials, scientists and reporters — including Norwegian Prime
Minister Jens Stoltenberg — spent the night in the white tents, so
there was no way out for me.
Luckily the compact blue
sleeping bag supplied expanded to a luxurious thicknesswhen unpacked.
It kept out the chill — but I had to put a sweater over my head to stop
my face from freezing. After scant sleep, it was a relief to get back
into the main heated building at Troll for a few cups of coffee.
Bird Bath
Stoltenberg was visiting to
learn about climate change and Antarctica, a vast block of ice which
holds more than half the planet's fresh water. If it ever melted, it
would raise world sea levels by almost 60 metres (200 feet).
"Antarctica is the secret
to understanding climate change," Stoltenberg told me during a chat in
the warmth of the Troll station. My night in the tent had given me no
sense of a thaw around Troll.
But later that day, with
ice as far as the eye could see on a trip over a barren ice sheet, it
was asurp......
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A sliver of four-billion-year-old sea floor has offered a glimpse into the inner workings of an adolescent Earth. The baked and twisted rocks, now part of Greenland, show the earliest evidence of plate tectonics, colossal movements of the planet's outer shell. Until now, researchers were unable to say when the process, which explains how oceans and continents form, began. The unique find, described in the journal Science, shows the movements started soon after the planet formed. &quo...Climate change and phenomena
Anthony North: We are facing dangers, today, from global warming. This essay is not going to argue whether this is man-made or a natural cycle as such, but is to suggest another avenue of research – into the relationship between climate and paranormal experience.Many researchers, including myself, have suggested that an environment can have an effect upon the mind. But does the present climate change offer a possibility of testing the hypothesis in action?Gaia: The idea that the Earth is a form ...Study explains rainforest similarities
Celebrated in Buddhist temples and cultivated for its wood and cottony fibers, the kapok tree now is upsetting an idea that biologists have clung to for decades: the notion that African and South American rainforests are similar because the continents were connected 96 million years ago. Research by University of Michigan evolutionary ecologist Christopher Dick and colleagues shows that kapok---and perhaps other rainforest--trees colonized Africa after the continents split when the trees' se...Did comets cause killer cold spell ?
Tiny diamonds sprinkled across North America suggest a "swarm" of comets hit the Earth around 13,000 years ago, kicking up enough disruption to send the planet into a cold spell and drive mammoths and other creatures into extinction, scientists reported on Friday.They suggest an event that wouldtranscend anything Biblical -- a series of blinding explosions in the atmosphere equivalent to thousands of atomic bombs, the researchers said.The so-called nanodiamonds are made underhigh-temperature, hi...Ancient tsunami 'hit New York'
A huge wave crashed into the New York City region 2,300 years ago, dumping sediment and shells across Long Island and New Jersey and casting wood debris far up the Hudson River. The scenario, proposed by scientists, is undergoing further examination to verify radiocarbon dates and to rule out other causes of the upheaval. Sedimentary deposits from more than 20 cores in New York and New Jersey indicate that some sort of violent force swept the Northeast coastal region in 300BC. It may ...Prehistoric jungles laughed at global warming
Evidence has been found to suggest that giant creatures such as the massive one-tonne titanoboa snake would have thrived in hot jungles millions of years ago with temperatures significantlywarmer than those seen today."Fossil boffins say that dense triple-canopyrainforests, home among other things to gigantic one-tonne boa constrictors, flourished millions of years ago in temperatures 3-5°C warmer than those seen today - as hot...Massive ice chunks break up in Antarctica
An ice shelf in western Antarctica is breaking up with huge ice chunks crumbling away and an area over 1300 square miles in danger of breaking off completely in the next few weeks."Massive ice chunks are crumbling away from a shelf inthe western Antarctic Peninsula, researchers said Wednesday, warning that 1,300 square miles of ice - an area larger than Rhode Island - was in danger of breaking off in coming weeks. . "...Prepare for another ten scorching years
Temperature records will be repeatedly shattered over the next few years, say researchers behind the first rigorous look at how global climate will change during the next decade. The prediction comes from an innovative technique that combines the approaches used by weather forecasters, who typically look a few days ahead, and climate modellers, who produce projections that run up to the end of the century. The result is a model that can project as far as 2015, filling in a long-standing gap in c... Animal Language
One of the ways most animals communicate is with sound, they may neigh, bark,
purr or quack; we speak. These auditory messages convey
meaning for the species concerned. We understand words,
horses understand neighs, dogs understand barks and so on.
Quacks don?t correspond with words, neighs
mean little to cats, but what is universal is body language.
Animals can understand the body language of their species and of others.
They usually recognize a...Global warming could change Earths tilt
It is thought that global warming could cause the Earth"s axis to tilt significantly within the next hundred years, with the rebound from melting ice sheets and the rise in sea levels both contributing to changes in the planet"s tilt."Warming oceans could cause Earth"s axis to tilt in the comingcentury, a new study suggests. . The effect was previously thought to be negligible, but researchers now say the shift will be lar...
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Sea floor records ancient Earth
Climate change and phenomena
Study explains rainforest similarities
Did comets cause killer cold spell ?
Ancient tsunami 'hit New York'
Prehistoric jungles laughed at global warming
Massive ice chunks break up in Antarctica
Animal Language
Global warming could change Earths tilt
