Life at the extremes

Nick Middleton, Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford

When the British arrived in the Khasi Hills of north-east India in the 19th century, the grassy uplands reminded them of Scotland. But it’s a Scotland with paddy fields and leeches and rainfall that is second to none. The village of Mawsynram holds the record for being the wettest place on Earth, with annual average rainfall that totals an extraordinary 11,872mm, or nearly 39 feet.

As in the rest of India, Mawsynram receives most of its rain during the monsoon season. Moist air from the Bay of Bengal is forced to rise over the hills, cool and condense, delivering epic amounts of precipitation. The village is 1,400m above sea level and locals still wear tartan shawls, a hangover from the Raj, against the upland chill.

The cosmic intensity of rainfall in Mawsynram means villagers traditionally lay thick grass on the roofs of their houses to soundproof them from the deafening deluge. Many prefer to stay indoors as much as possible during the monsoon, having stocked up on basic foods, but those who must venture out to work wear specially extended hats woven from bamboo and reeds. These knups look like giant tortoise shells and are large enough to keep rain off the entire body right down to the knees.

Life in the world’s oldest and driest desert, the Atacama in South America, presents a different sort of challenge. Settlements here can go for a decade without any rain whatsoever. Many towns have their water supplies delivered by tanker, including Quillagua where they receive less than a millimetre of rain every year on average. On the coast, however, fog provides a regular, if small, input of moisture, and in the small town of Chungongo a series of large nets has been erected to catch the droplets of fog and channel them along drainpipes to a storage tank. One hundred fogcollecting nets are strung across the hillside above the town, each harvesting 170 litres of fog water a day.

The world’s highest temperatures have also been recorded in deserts, thanks to their clear skies and many hours of intense sunshine. Ethiopia’s Danakil is one of the world’s least-known desert depressions and its few inhabitants, the Afar, have a fierce reputation. Most Afar men go about their work heavily armed, carrying kalashnikov rifles and long curved knives in their belts. One theory has it that their traditional lack of hospitality is born of their harsh terrain: the desert has few resources, so welcoming outsiders would mean less of everything to go round.

The Afar practise nomadic herding, an age-old adaptation to the desert landscape. Livestock are moved around the countryside in constant search for pastures new, and Afar families live an itinerant lifestyle. Their huts, woven matting draped over a skeleton of wooden stakes, are easily dismantled and loaded on to a camel for transport. Perhaps it is no surprise therefore that the mining town of Dallol, holder of the record highest average annual air temperature (34.5°C), is no longer inhabited.

Weather in the Danakil is baking hot all year round, but the town noted for its record low temperature is a place of seasonal extremes. Residents of Oymyakon, the coldest town on Earth, experience summer temperatures as high as +30°C, but conditions in winter are rather different. A small monument has been erected in the centre of town to commemorate the occasion in the 1920s when the lowest temperature of –71.2°C was recorded.

Minus 40 or 50 is commonplace during the winter months in Oymyakon. The searing cold bites through layers of clothing as if they weren’t there, so padded coats and animal-fur hats are the order of the day. Boots made of reindeer skin or horsehair come with thick felt soles to keep feet warm. Siberia is full of trees, so people live in log cabins – the windows are triple-glazed – and have no shortage of fuel. There’s no running water. Chunks of ice are hacked from the local river and stored outside, taken into the house and melted as and when necessary.

At such low temperatures, the body’s metabolism expends more energy to keep you warm. Foods that are rich in protein and carbohydrates, which involve greater energy expenditure to digest, a process known as thermogenesis, help to maintain body temperature. Meat, usually horse or reindeer, is eaten in large quantities, followed by filling puddings consisting of thick cream and jam. Of course, the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables also reflects the impossibility of cultivating them in severe sub-zero conditions.