Arctic
Russian town records highest ever temperature at 38 C
BY STAFF
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted June
21, 2020 2:06 pm
A Siberian
town with the world’s widest temperature range has recorded a new high amid a
heat wave that is contributing to severe forest fires.
The
temperature in Verkhoyansk hit 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 F) on Saturday, according
to Pogoda i Klimat, a website that compiles Russian meteorological data.
The town is
located above the Arctic Circle in the Sakha Republic, about 4,660 kilometers
(2,900 miles) northeast of Moscow.
The town of
about 1,300 residents is recognized by the Guinness World Records for the most
extreme temperature range, with a low of minus-68 degrees C (minus-90 F) and a
previous high of 37.2 C (98.96 F..)
Much of
Siberia this year has had unseasonably high temperatures, leading to sizable
wildfires.
A Siberian Town Just Hit 100 F Degrees Fahrenheit. 38
Degrees Celsius
Olivia RosaneJun. 22, 2020
A town in
Siberia recorded a temperature of 38 degrees Celsius, or 100.4 degrees
Fahrenheit Saturday.
If
verified, it will break the record both for the town itself and for everywhere
north of the Arctic Circle, The Weather Channel reported. It also comes as
Siberia has experienced an exceptionally warm 2020 so far.
"What's
happening in Siberia this year is nothing short of remarkable. The kind of
weather we expect by 2100, 80 years early," CBS meteorologist Jeff
Berardelli tweeted.
The town of
Verkhoyansk, where the high temperature was recorded, is usually one of the
coldest places on Earth, Berardelli wrote for CBS.
Its average
temperature for late June is in the mid 60s, according to The Weather Channel,
and its previous record high temperature was 99.1 degrees Fahrenheit, set in
1988. In November 2019, its temperature plunged to almost 60 degrees below
zero, Vox reported. On Sunday, children were photographed seeking relief in a
lake that is frozen in winter, according to The Weather Channel.
Verkhoyansk's
record cold temperature was set at negative 67.8 degrees Celsius, or negative
90 degrees Fahrenheit, in 1892. If Saturday's reading holds, that will put a
105.8 degrees Celsius difference between the town's temperature extremes.
"That's
a difference in extremes larger than the difference between water's freezing
and boiling points, likely the largest spread between all-time record high and
low temperatures anywhere on Earth," Jonathan Erdman wrote for The Weather
Channel.
There are
some doubts about the accuracy of Saturday's reading, according a Washington
Post article reported by Vox. But a weather balloon recorded unusually high
temperatures in the lower atmosphere Saturday, and the town hit 95.3 degrees on
Sunday.
Even if the
reading doesn't hold, Siberia is still in the grips of an extremely warm 2020.
Temperatures
in May were 10 degrees Celsius higher than usual, making it the region's
warmest May on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
And Russia
broke its record for January to May 2020 by more than 1.9 degrees Celsius,
according to Berkeley Earth lead scientist Robert Rohde.
"It is
undoubtedly an alarming sign, but not only May was unusually warm in this
region," senior Copernicus Climate Change Service scientist Freja Vamborg
said in a statement reported by Vox. "The whole of winter and spring had
repeated periods of higher-than-average surface air temperatures."
All of this
heat has had real consequences, Rohde pointed out.
Siberia has
seen early, widespread wildfires, and melting permafrost contributed to a
devastating oil spill when it caused pillars beneath a storage tank to sink.
Siberia's
current heat wave has both a short- and long-term cause, Beradelli explained.
In the
short term, the heat wave is the result of a high pressure dome, but ultimately
the climate crisis is driving Arctic extremes.
"Due
to heat trapping greenhouse gases that result from the burning of fossil fuels
and feedback loops, the Arctic is warming at more than two times the average
rate of the globe," he wrote.
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