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Death Valley Dethrones Impostor As Hottest Place On Earth

Posted by timothy on from the c'mon-the-place-is-called-death-valley dept.

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."

2 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like most temperature data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    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.

  2. It was a wake up call for me by bogaboga · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    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!