Slashdot Mirror
Death Valley Dethrones Impostor As Hottest Place On Earth
Hugh Pickens writes "Adam Nagourney reports that after a yearlong investigation a team of climate scientists announced that it is throwing out a reading of 136.4 degrees claimed by the city of Al Aziziyah, Libya on Sept. 13, 1922 making the 134-degree reading registered on July 10, 1913, at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley the official world record as the hottest place on earth. 'It's about time for science, but I think we all knew it was coming,' says Randy Banis. 'You don't underestimate Death Valley. Most of us enthusiasts are proud that the extremes that we have known about at Death Valley are indeed the most harsh on earth.' The final report by 13 climatologists appointed by the World Meteorological Organization, the climate agency of the United Nations, found five reasons to disqualify the Libya claim, including questionable instruments, an inexperienced observer who made the reading, and the fact that the reading was anomalous for that region and in the context of other temperatures reported in Libya that day. 'The more we looked at it, the more obvious it appeared to be an error,' says Christopher C. Burt, a meteorologist with Weather Underground who started the debate in a blog post in 2010."
the temperature in Libya was in Celsius?
"Hello, IT... Have you tried turning it off and on again? Yeah... No problem."
Most temperature data collected over the years should be disqualified for those and other various reasons including the data fabrication that is done by GISS, NOAA and others.
For a number of articles on the topic that show the data fabrication see: http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/data-tampering-at-ushcngiss.
Would it, really?
You can learn a lot about a person if you just take the time to inject them with sodium pentathol
This is the best world-renowned scientists can come up with? Do some real fucking work and stop using mans obsession with the 'best' to fund your pet moron project.
Good-bye
136.4 degrees is 58 degrees Celsius
(courtesy of the program in my sig's link).
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
There’s a short documentary film about this new (old) Death Valley record called Dead Heat: Overturning the World’s Hottest Temperature , from Wunderground in association with Mitchell Film Company.
I was in Ali Al Salem, Kuwait in June of 2010 and the thermostats showed it was 138. Maybe it was because it was a Air Base and had a lot of planes? Anyway, the lack of humidity there meant the heat wasn't that bad. I've felt absolutely horrible in the Southern USA when the temperature was only in the 90s. There it was in the 130s and it was hot but not unbearably so. I guess the lack of humidity meant that your sweat actually worked better?
W00t! USA! USA!
bang goes my karma... again...
Here in Minnesota we record annual temperature shifts that can reach up to 150F between the hottest hot and the coldest cold :)
CAPTCHA: arrogant
a regular expression for the name of the leader that was recently deposed?
Or even degrees C, which is what scientists use...
In response to the article about Death Valley, Slashdot generated this quote:
It'll be just like Beggars' Canyon back home. -- Luke Skywalker
Indeed, except all the womp rats are dead, and not even a moisture farmer can make a living there. You nerf herders have it easy...
Nonsense. Compare to Dome A in Antarctica.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Was thinking the same thing. It's like they intentionally left it out.
Good, America is first again.
AMERICA FUCK YEAH!
It's funny how they do not take into account the nationalist usian bias in the analysis.
Or even degrees C, which is what scientists use...
Actually, the SI unit of temperature is the Kelvin.
Everyone should visit the place at least once so you can say you are glad you don't live there. To this day the only time I've ever been in 124 degrees F weather. The car couldn't take it, and reached vapor lock right as we pulled into a rest stop. I might have been reading Red Mars at the time, but if anything I could have been on Venus. We drove the rest of the way to Vegas with the windows down and the heater on.
Well it's easier to convert from K to C than from K to F (or C to F). Anyway, any temperature should be postfixed with the unit, especially here on /..
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Well, I visited some African country that lies straight on the Equautor. As an individual from the west, I arrived with my prejudices that this country would be nautrally hotter than my home land.
I was wrong! The temperature, right at the equator was no more than 28 degrees celcius (82.4 degrees F). I was suprised. The locals told me it had to do with their altitude, which is much higher.
When I called my family, they had sympathy for the "hot weather". My repeated advice to them that my homeland (Texas) was hotter was difficult to believe.
Sad thing is that I am not alone. Almost everyone I have told this story still thinks, "If it's at the equator, it must be hot hot hot."
I later found out they even have a river, whose waters come from ice...right at the equator! Amazing!
This seems to me to be a really dumb thing to be proud of.
But I would rather have kelvin than farenheit really, or for pity's sake, at the very elast a UNIT. Which is the most basic for science reporting or those pretending to do such things.
That 0.6 after the 98 is spurious accuracy...
This is 'Murca goddamnit.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
Maybe people on SlashDot will finally learn that scientific notation and the metric system make it easier to not make stupid mistakes while communicating measurements. Really, "136.4 degrees" ? Come on, put some scale with that, n00b.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Hugh Pickens... The new Roland Piquepaille?
Pimping his "blog" for page views...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
All I can say is... Cool!!
<grin>
Why especially here on Slashdot, a US site?.
Because even Americans might need to know what temperature scale is used on a site that takes in articles from all over the world?
At Stovepipe Wells, at 11 AM, with 2 liters of water. The dunes looked like a short, interesting hike. In any other place, that would be true. The temperature when we left the car was 106F. This is only a bit hotter than the hottest day I've experienced in Virginia. I thought I would be fine. No. There's something about the extra temperature, the dryness, the pressure. My body wasn't handling it properly. I couldn't drink the water fast enough. I felt like crap walking back, and so did my companion.
It was 109F when we got back to the car, on the way up to who knows what. We turned around and nixed our plans to check out the camp sites there.
Now, you could say we were foolish; but we were nowhere near as foolish as many others. We *thought* we were prepared. Maybe the water saved us from collapsing. A lot of other people do truly foolish things out there, and pay the ultimate price. I will never underestimate that place again.
I'd like to do the dunes again--just before sunrise, which I understand is popular and comparatively sane.
If global warming is bringing more extreme weather, probably that record will get defeated next year, either in southern summer or northern one.
That temperature it not even considered hot as anyone who regularly takes proper sauna baths. Sauna steam room (löylyhuone in finnish) is commonly at least 80C and usually you, regardless being minor or adult male of female stay there 1015 minutes at one time and throw some water over the stove stones which is then vaporizes and makes it feel quite a bit more hotter than it would without it.
I used to work few years in Saudi and lived in Riyadh. The common daily temperature mid July to mid September was 47C - 52C. Officially never it was above 50C because according to local law they would have given day off to anyone working outside so it never was officially above 50C even though we all observed thermometers showing peak temperatures of 52 quite often. Now Riyadh is located at middle part of arabian peninsula, 440km to east Dammam, Al-Khobar and 1200 km west to Jeddah. Riyadh is over 1000m above sea level (top of large escarpment) and air is very dry usually around 40% relative humidity.
The 50C did not feel that bad, but as I spent some time also in Dammam there the relative humidity was during the summer above 99% and water was condensing and dripping, like it was raining even you saw it was full and clear sunshine, from anything which was a bit cooler like AC cooled houses windows. Yourself also felt it especially when you stepped out from AC equiped car it was one woosh and you were like a pint of beer hot summer day, but basically because human skin temperature is around 30C steam would condense even if you were just doing nothing. One of the coolest (pun intended) things local kids had figured out was that they sold water bottles and tiny towels almost every traffic lights. Price was not too much just few riyals and both supplies were badly needed.
The highest temperature I saw a digital thermometer showing outside offices was just below 54C one noon before 3 p.m. and I felt so lucky that I don't need to work outside but instead properly cooled telecoms site.
OK, long story short. Few degrees was it 58C to 54C don't make that much difference, but the prevailing humidity conditions make a huge difference. So if both temperature measured in Death Valley or Libya were as dry as it was in Riyadh that isn't much. Just if you don't believe me warm up sauna properly to let's say 80C and go sit there with or without clothes for 10 to 15 minutes. It's not hard. Then start throwing half a liter (about pint) water at time and continue until you have poured half of bucket (5-6 liters) and I'm sure you know what I try to explain how much the humidity makes difference.
ps. Some people in finland like bathing above 100-110C sauna, but I consider it too much. I prefer it around 90C, always using plenty of water first to moisture benches with water, throwing plenty of water (löylyä) to stove, sit there sweating quietly 10-15 minutes, then take a cools shower, wash myself after first take and then repeating the steam room thing at heast 3 times. Sometimes depending where the sauna is, we may run to lake for a short dip or rolld in clean white snow if available. That's going from +90C steamy room to either +20C shower or take a dip in lake which water can be pretty much freezing 0C ie. hole made in ice and kept ice free just for this purpose.
I was quite often asked in Saudi by someone I met first time that how come guy like you up from north don't complain much about the hot weather in Saudi. I just said that this is not hot it's just fine for me. Over the years I got so used to warmth of Saudi weather (Riyadh area) and that's actually one of the things I've often missed after my return from there.
What readers objected to with Roland Piquepaille's stories was that Roland initially used other people's content on his blog to earn ad revenue, but he later stopped linking to stories he had republished on his blog and linked his submissions directly to the source articles.
if anything, Roland has contributed greatly to the /. community by submitting a ton of excellent stories--even after he stopped earning ad revenue from submissions--and starting many interesting discussions. so he clearly cared more about /. as a thriving community with a rich online culture than just another business to be monetized. and if you're more worried about Slashdot's value as a business than its usefulness to its users (which is primarily from the discussions that follow each submission), then you clearly don't understand /. as well as Roland did.
/. community as he has.
your blatant hyperboles and baseless accusations are more dishonest than Roland has ever been. and i doubt you will ever make as great of a contribution to the
Jesus H. M. F. Christ people!
If it were 136.4 Kelvins it would NOT be anything like the hottest temperature recorded on Earth, in the great outdoors, we, humans, would consider it bitterly fucking cold. So unless you're not a human, or you're a moron, you're just splitting hairs. Ditto on the question of whether it's Celsius/Centigrade or Fahrenheit. If the outdoor temperature hits 136.4 or even 134 degrees C, referring to the ambient atmospheric temperature, without counting anywhere or any occasion when the temperature was higher as the result of something WE did, (like when we made the weather very hot in Dresden, Germany, or Hiroshima or Nagasaki in Japan, as a few examples that come readily to mind...) it would be hotter than anyone could handle just walking around. But it has been and currently is much hotter than that in many places on Earth, as I type this... such as inside geysers, and active volcanoes, for instance, to say nothing of the Earth's core.
When someone speaks of or writes about the "hottest place on Earth"... IT IS UNDERSTOOD THAT THEY'RE REFERRING TO THE TEMPERATURE AS NATURALLY OCCURS DUE TO ROUTINE NATURAL EFFECTS OF SUN AND WIND AND RAIN, ETC. IT SHOULD BE LIKEWISE UNDERSTOOD, EXCEPT PERHAPS BY A BUNCH OF SMARTASSES, that when that temperature is 134 degrees, THAT IT'S IN FUCKING FAHRENHEIT!
Quit being a bunch of assholes, you know it's Fahrenheit, I know it's Fahrenheit, and was it lazy not to add the letter F? Yes. Was it worth all of you having an argument about? Jesus Tap Dancing, Tittiefucking Christ, NO.
You guys will argue about literally anything, won't you!?!
Yet another failure. There is no continent on Earth called America. There's North America and South America. A region called Central America. The only people on Earth that refer to anything as America on a consistent basis is the USA which refers to itself as America. Its called the internet. Lots of information on there to keep from looking like an idiot. You may want to look into it.
Yep it's hot there, photo I took in 2009 there in August... in the shade.
http://www.coleskingdom.com/pics/racetrack/100_4070.JPG
I can see a very "heated" debate about this. My guess is this isn't about temperature as we might believe but about the new discovery of something truly evil and diabolical at this place in Libya. The only guess of what it could be would be from the name, perhaps referencing the movie "The 5th Element" (Aziz, Light!). Although I am currently watching "Devil's Advocate" so who knows?
What for? It's already completely obvious that the units are degrees Fahrenheit, even to people from outside of the United States, such as myself. 136.4 degrees Celsius is 36.4 degrees above the boiling point of water; it's unlikely that good record keeping would have been done in such a climate :P
Although the post you responded to was 'incorrect' (more likely being facetious), you managed to be completely wrong. You might want to follow your own advise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#Etymology_and_naming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas#America_or_Americas
when I was in Iraq, in the summer time, it hit 135 on a regular basis, with 141 occationally on hot days
its not 110 degress, which it gets in west texas either.
Americans don't read, idiot
Certainly not a failure.
Why are people in the Netherlands not called Netherlandians?
You mean your nationality name doesn't have to correspond with geography? Amazing!
Its what we call ourselves, get over it
See nationality section
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
Whilst true, 1 degree C is the same change as 1 degree K, so it's only really numerical differences between C and K
You didn't put a unit with "36.4 degrees above the boiling point of water." How am I supposed to know if you meant (212 + 26.4) degrees F or (100 + 26.4) degrees C?
*ducks*
When I was there is was raining. Quite disappointing.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Jury Rigging the time series is apprehensible ... akin to the crime of ... murder.
Moving the 'highest' ... i.e. perhaps not, to nine years before makes the current near surface air temperatures, cast as anomalies to a fictitious 1950-1980 climatological mean, such a thing does not exist except only in the minds of psychopaths, renders the recent 1999 to 2010 near surface temperature anomalies ... larger [!] and therein lyes the dead body from everybody's most wonderful and fantastic and unprecedented Astrological Organization the World Meteorological Organization. Adolf Hitler is smiling and shedding a tear upon the SS WMO.
Well here is proof enough that history is indeed written by the victor.
Got a reading that doesn't tell the right story? Just delete it. That is how they do in the new world of climatology. First they vanish the Mideveal Warming Period and now this.
Not, as the misleading title suggests, the hottest place, just the hottest properly recorded single temperature reading
big emphasis on single temperature reading - one reading a day/week/year does not make.
Properly recording temperature isn't simple or intuitive - it's also kind of hard to do in some parts of the world because it's so damn hot.
The hottest place on the planet most years is in the Danakil Desert, which not surprisingly is a bit of a ghost town. Death Valley is about 86 metres below sea level, Danakil is a little lower (about 100m below). Nearby Dallol is the hottest average inhabited place on earth with an average mean of 34.4C and an average max of 41.1C.
Danakil can also be a bit warmer when the volcanoes are active... like some places get warmer when bushfires are raging (51C in parts of Victoria the other year, similar temperatures in some of the Californian fires).
Little of the planets temperatures are measured to the standards quoted in the parent article - so I'd take them with a big pinch of Danakil salt. And "apparent" (to humans) temperatures are a whole 'nuther thing. Shade temperatures don't allow for reflected heat from salt and white sand.
Biggest temperature variations - without a doubt it'd be the Black Hills (USA). Especially considering the extremely short time period involved. Only other place I can think of that comes close to those fast, extreme variations is Charlotte Pass (Australia).
Climate Scientist are always throwing out temps they don't like and making up one's that fit their models.
Ha, please. Temperatures in the Rub' al Khali (Empty Quarter/desert) in the Arabian Peninsula have probably easily topped these records in the past few summers, if there were ever accurate official numbers published. I am an expat in the U.A.E. right now. Officially, the government does not broadcast temperatures over about 48 degrees C ever, even for its major cities which are cooler, since there would be justified calls for public holidays due to health concerns. My own personal thermometers as well as friends and colleagues have recorded temperatures well over 50 C several days in succession during afternoons even in coastal area where I live which are cooler than the inland desert areas. However - could my fellow slashdot users kindly advise me on the best methodology to be used so I can make my temperature measurements more 'official'. I'd like to take desert and coastal temperature measurements next summer and post these online along with my methodology and pictures of the measurement set up and display itself as well as proof of the time and location. Thanks !
Remember what it's like when you open an oven to take out cooked food.? That blast of air is what Death Valley feels like in midsummer. Automobiles don't like it there, by the way.
"The committee deemed it plausible that inaccurate determination of which end of the recording pin (choosing the higher end rather than the correct lower end) to use for temperature evaluation created substantial error in measurement as well as other potential additional reading errors (e.g., slippage of the scale). Our committee consensus is that a total error of approximately 7C in reading a Bellani-Six thermometer by an inexperienced observer is probable." Sounds good but perfectly stupid argument as it gives a starting difference of 2*7C between maximum and minimum after resetting the thermometer. Any sober observer knows witch side of the recording pin must be measured.
... then just look here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/13/dr-jeff-masters-shows-why-siting-matters-death-valley-steals-all-time-temperature-record-from-libya/
Seems to me it gets that hot in Kuwait or Saudi every other year.
"This sense of America, in modern usage, is used almost exclusively to refer to the United States of America" Thank you for referencing a wiki page that backs up my statement regarding CONSISTENT usage of the term America.