Friis-Christensen received a Magisterkonferens (Ph.D. equivalent) in Geophysics from University of Copenhagen in 1971.[2] In 1972, he was a geophysicist at the Danish Meteorological Institute. His interest in solar activity began in August, in his tent, when he experienced an extreme solar storm I was in Greenland, on my first assignment in my new job as geophysicist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, setting up a chain of magnetometer stations on the west coast... watching ink pens of my recorder going so wild that they nearly tore the paper chart apart -- we had no digital recording at that time -- and I wondered whether such big events could also have an influence in the lower atmosphere, on weather and climate. That storm cut off my contact to the outside world for nine days -- all radio communication was blacked out -- so I had lots of time to reflect on the enormity of the forces at play