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Iranian City Soars To Record 129F Degrees: Near Hottest On Earth in Modern Measurements (washingtonpost.com)
A city in southwest Iran posted the country's hottest temperature ever recorded Thursday afternoon, and may have tied the world record for the most extreme high temperature. From a report on The Washington Post: Etienne Kapikian, a forecaster at French meteorological agency MeteoFrance, posted to Twitter that the city of Ahvaz soared to "53.7C" (128.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Kapikian said the temperature is a "new absolute national record of reliable Iranian heat" (alternative, non-paywalled source) and that it was the hottest temperature ever recorded in June over mainland Asia. Iran's previous hottest temperature was 127.4. Weather Underground's website indicates the temperature in Ahvaz climbed even higher, hitting 129.2 degrees at both 4:51 and 5 p.m. local time. If that 129.2 degrees reading is accurate, it would arguably tie the hottest temperature ever measured on Earth in modern times.
Who writes temperatures as "129 degrees"? This is a science and tech site, at very least, if you're going to use outmoded, outdated, antiquated, anachronistic, non-standard, and mostly unused units of measurement, indicate the unit.
Isn't Iran in the old Mesopotamia region? The one that almost died out way-back-when because of sudden climate change? I suppose it wouldn't be much of a surprise if that's the first region to go again in the next sudden climate change.
Oh .. you mean 54 degrees .. like was mentioned in TFA
That's 327 K, you backwards Luddite. "Degrees" - what is this, the Dark Ages?
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I have seen very close to that - my home town made it to 128 one summer.
The thing is it was such a shit-hole of a town there are no official weather stations there. All the official measurements were taken miles away in Odessa or other shit-hole towns they happened to put weather stations in or around. Pecos just was ignored, and was in a unique place geological being in a wide plane surrounded by mountain ranges and higher elevations, it created a type of hot-box effect. I was driving a 1983 GMC Sierra Classic at the time. The little orange needle that showed if you were in PRND1-2 melted in half and the spring pulled it to the left. My sisters walkman melted in it.
So, due to all of the locals reading their own thermometers and the local channel 6 (which was just a CGA graphics info readout) saying it got up to 128 I know it was there. Since Kermit Texas some miles to the North never made it that high we never officially made it there.
That was in 1994 I believe. As far as I know it hasn't passed 118 or so since. My dad tells me in 75 or so when he was working the feedlots it got up to about 132. I wasn't born yet so I certainly can't confirm that one.
At least in my little world both the hot and the cold extremes have tapered based on my own limited observations. The rains have become more erratic, but having moved away from that area my own observations are no longer current.
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The official highest recorded temperature is now 56.7C (134F), which was measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California, USA. So yeah it's pretty high but call me when it gets to 135F.
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Recorded high temperatures in Ahvaz in July are 129.2F, so this isn't the highest on record even for that city. It's a record for June, but, hey, it's the end of June. Ahvaz also holds the record as the "world's most air-polluted city". Incidentally, they do get snow in the winter. What a place!
Former US Army private here. A LOT longer than you would think. Especially when you will be punished severely if you don't.
What do you mean? 327 KB or 327 KiB?
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Depends on the humidity.
You can survive well if you can sweat, but if humidity approaches 100%, you're dead.
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"Mother Nature is bleeding from her whatever."
You are welcome on my lawn.
My Grandmother used to tell me all the time. "You should not 'F' what you can't 'C', o 'K'. She had such hot sayings.
Direct observation/measurement isn't the only method to estimate global temperatures over long periods of time. This chart isn't scientific, and the vast majority of the line is dashed to show the temperature is estimated (not observed directly), but a picture is worth 1000 words:
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wi...
(On the plus side, we seem to be preventing the next ice age from coming along.)
You could argue that direct observation is the only way to be certain, but that's like arguing that there's no way to be certain that trees existed before mankind showed up to observe and document them. You could take it one step farther and argue that even after humans developed written language, they were probably lying (en masse), in much the same way you believe that 98% of the scientists studying climate are lying. Any fossils found were faked or planted there by God to test the faithless (because he's definitely that petty/vindictive).
Isn't there a point though, where the body can't get rid of heat fast enough and your body temperature starts to rise, causing hyperthermia and heat stroke?
The laws of physics say that if it's 129F and your body temperature is 98.6F, the heat transfer will be INTO your body. At what point is evaporative cooling via sweat no longer enough? There is a physical limit; there has to be.
That is not only not right, it is not even wrong.
Your body releases sensible, latent, and radiant heat. When the outside (dry bulb) temperature exceeds your body temperature, you are not able to transfer any heat via sensible means. This leaves perspiration and hopefully cool surrounding surfaces. Since the latter isn't going to happen you are 100% reliant on perspiration. Once the wet bulb exceeds your body temperature too then you are stuck and you are in extreme danger of heat stroke.
130F in the sun even with 0% humidity isn't really viable without heat stroke.
In this case, the dewpoint was around 5F; wouldn't want to be there for long.
Isn't there a point though, where the body can't get rid of heat fast enough and your body temperature starts to rise, causing hyperthermia and heat stroke?
The laws of physics say that if it's 129F and your body temperature is 98.6F, the heat transfer will be INTO your body. At what point is evaporative cooling via sweat no longer enough? There is a physical limit; there has to be.
Assume one were to get to one point, consider that many areas of the world have been very hot for ages... and obviously w/o air conditioning.
Back then, people would not go out between noon and, say, 4. You would get up very early to work, go to a siesta and resume work in the afternoon. It wasn't that long ago that people back in my country of origin would wake up before 4 to go to the fields with lanterns, be back by 11 with milk and produce, take a nap and wait till 4 to resume work.
Desert dwellers would travel at night, and so on. Adaptability is not just limited to the physical. It covers the behavioral and social.
Unless the relative humidity is 99%. Then you just stew in your own broth. 118 degrees of breezy, dry, desert heat feels like a bad 80-degree day in Miami. If it ever got to 120 degrees in Miami, people stuck outdoors would start to literally drop dead from heat.