Our dynamic planet

In the Our dynamic planet exhibition, you can see:

• Three 'living globes' showing ocean currents, wind and temperature in near real time
• The largest globe, showing the Earth's crust without the oceans
• Interactive installations, researcher interviews and films about weather and climate
• 'Visible proof that the Earth is round', from the museum's own journal Naturen (1886)

Even though the Earth rotates and orbits the sun, you and I stand still. In the water and the air, though, there is constant motion and activity. Here you can learn more about what shapes the weather and climate on our planet.

On three 'living globes', you can follow variations in ocean currents, wind and temperature around the world. We stream measurements from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research with a delay of one to three hours, so if a typhoon is raging in the Pacific, you can follow it here.

Interactive installations, researcher interviews and films give you insight into what determines tomorrow's weather, and what lies behind climate change on different time scales, from seasons to ice-age cycles. You will learn about natural climate change, which drives temperature both up and down, and about human-caused CO2 emissions, which only push it upward.

The exhibition explains how climate is affected by activity on the sun's surface and by the movements of the sun and Earth relative to each other. You will gain insight into how heat from the sun is distributed by air and water, and into what the great ocean currents mean for the exchange of heat between the poles and the equator. Did you know it can take a thousand years for cold water sinking in the Norwegian Sea to resurface again in the Pacific?

At least 70 per cent of the Earth's surface is ocean. The largest globe in the exhibition shows you 'the Earth's skin', the crust, without the oceans. We live on a crust that is only 5–15 kilometres thick and covers a red-hot mass of molten rock.

This crust, too, is in constant motion. It consists of large tectonic plates that collide in some places and drift apart in others. If you're in any doubt, the exhibition also offers 'visible proof that the Earth is round', published in the museum's own journal Naturen in 1886.