"My hometown, a small fishing village, is on a low plain, with quite a humid climate, so the extreme dry and hot natural environment was definitely a great challenge," says Chen.

Sticking to the low end of government estimates, the National Resources Defense Council says there may be no more than 3.2 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the coastal plain of ANWR.

Above a scorched plain outside Seville, Spain, reflected sunlight reflects again off low clouds.