Worthless facts are my specialty. For instance, the highest official temperature ever recorded on Earth: 136° in El Azizia, Libya (then Tripolitania and controlled by Italy), ninety years ago today¹.
I have to unlearn that record. It’s been stricken from the books!
There have been rumors for years questioning the way El Azizia’s readings were taken. Now they’ve been formalized.
“When we compared his observations to surrounding areas and to other measurements made before and after the 1922 reading, they simply didn’t match up,” – Randy Cerveny, Arizona State University meteorologist
The new record holder is Greenland Ranch, CA in Death Valley with 134° on July 10, 1913. It should be noted the second hottest US temperature was ‘only’ 129°, which raises some of the same concerns for this record as the last.
In the general scheme of things nothing changes but an entry in the record books. Al Azizia remains hot. Death Valley too with 140 days a year 100° or greater.
Greenland Ranch becomes the meteorological equivalent of finishing second to Lance Armstrong.
¹ – The coldest comes from Vostok Station at the center of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet where -128.6° was reached July 21, 1983.