The highest temperature officially recorded on earth was where?

According to the WMO, the current highest temperature ever recorded on Earth was 56.7°C/134.1°F, and it happened on July 10, 1913. But it could be on shaky grounds.

Summertime is here. Well, from a meteorological point of view, summer starts on June 1. However, astronomers see the summer starting around June 21 or 22.

One commonly asked question I get is about the temperature records and the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth.

While there are some conflicting sources, I tried to analyze and research the highest temperature recorded and give some background story on how air temperatures are measured by the World Meteorological Organization.

The highest temperature ever recorded on Earth?

For many years, the record for the highest temperature ever recorded was established in El Azzizia in Libya. Allegedly, the temperature recorded was 57.8°C/136.0°F.

However, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) denounced this record precisely 90 years after it was established – on September 13, 2012.

According to the WMO, the current highest temperature ever recorded on Earth record is 56.7°C/134.1°F, and it happened on July 10, 1913. Coincidentally, 106 years ago.

The location of the highest temperature ever recorded is Furnace Creek Ranch, Death Valley, California, USA.

However, there seem to be some doubts about this record as well. The World Meteorological Organization publicly announced that they would be willing to reconsider this record as well, in case some additional and more verifiable data appears.

If this record from the Death Valley gets denounced by the WMO, the next highest certifiable temperature record would be the one from July 21, 2016, from Mitribah in Kuwait, where a temperature of 54.0°C/129.2°F was officially recorded.

How is the air temperature measured?

According to WMO standards, the air temperature is measured using thermometers at a height from 1.25 meters and up to 2.0 meters above the ground and within shade – protected from direct sunlight. This height is strictly specified because there can be pronounced vertical temperature gradients close to the ground levels.

The measurements should be taken over the level ground and exposed freely to sunshine and other atmospheric conditions. There should not be shade from trees, buildings, or any other obstructions. The thermometers must be placed within a white protective box with proper ventilation to measure the air temperature. The main reason for this is to ensure that no direct solar radiation reaches the thermometer. This is why people who put thermometers in direct sunlight record extremely high temperatures. They do not see the temperature of the air; they measure the temperature of the thermometer itself.

In addition to these very basic rules and standards, the WMO has very detailed procedures and protocols for measuring temperatures. There is even an ISO standard for air temperature measurements.

Unverified record claims

There are many unverified claims about the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth higher than the official record of 56.7°C. From 57.8°C “recorded” in Cherokee, Oklahoma, all the way to 60°C “recorded” in Kopperl, Texas.

Cooling down or staying warm?

If this talk about record high temperatures are making you sweat and look for some refreshments, you can take a look at the maps and list of the lowest temperatures ever recorded in Europe. But if you still want to stay in this warmth, look at the map and list of the highest temperatures ever recorded in Europe, for every European country!

And if you need even more to cool you down, feel free to explore how the word “snow” is written in different languages and what are the origins of the word “snow.”

Many are curious about the hottest temperature ever recorded, but there is misleading information out there with regard to this statistic. Until September 2012, the record for the world's hottest temperature was held by Al Aziziyah, Libya that was reported to have reached a high of 136.4°F (58°C) on September 13 of 1922. However, the World Meteorological Organization has since determined that this temperature was overestimated by about 12.6°F (7°C).

But what caused such a major miscalculation? The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) concluded that there were a few factors at play: faulty equipment was used, the individual that read the thermometer that day was inexperienced, and the observation site was poorly selected and did not accurately represent its surrounding area.

In reality, North America holds the record high temperature. Below, read about the highest numbers ever reached on a thermometer in each of the world's seven continents.

Two locations have reached extreme—and very close—record temperatures in Asia just since 2016. Mitribah, Kuwait saw a high of 129°F (53.9°C) in July of 2016 and Turbat, Pakistan reached 128.7°F (53.7°C) in May of 2017. These are the highest temperatures reached most recently anywhere in the world as of 2019.

On the continent of Asia's far western edge, near the junction of Africa, Tirat Zvi, Israel was reported to have reached a temperature of 129.2°F (54.0°C) on June 21, 1942. This record is still under evaluation by the WMO as it was not officially recorded at the time.

While equatorial Africa is commonly believed to be the hottest place on earth, according to world record temperatures, it is not. The highest temperature ever recorded in Africa was 131.0°F (55.0°C) in Kebili, Tunisia, reached in July of 1931. This small town in North Africa is located along the northern edge of the Sahara Desert.

Though impressively hot, this record temperature is not quite the highest in the world and the continent has not come close to topping it since 1931.

The world record for the highest temperature ever officially recorded is 134.0°F (56.7°C). Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, California holds this crown and achieved this global high on July 10, 1913. The global record temperature is, of course, also the record high for the continent of North America. Due to its geography and location, Death Valley is both the lowest and arguably also the hottest place on earth.

On December 11, 1905, the highest temperature in South American history clocked in at 120°F (48.9°C) in Rivadavia, Argentina. Rivadavia is located in northern Argentina, just south of the Paraguayan border in the Gran Chaco and east of the Andes. This coastal province sees a wide range of temperatures due to its position along the sea.

Unsurprisingly, the lowest high-temperature extreme for all continents is held by frigid Antarctica. The highest temperature ever met by this southernmost continent was 63.5°F (17.5°C), met at the Esperanza research station on March 24, 2015. This incredibly high temperature is quite unusual for the continent that houses the South Pole. Researchers believe that Antarctica has probably reached even higher temperatures but that these have not been properly or scientifically captured.

Athens, the capital of Greece, holds the record for the highest temperature ever recorded in Europe. The high temperature of 118.4°F (48.0°C) was reached on July 10, 1977 in Athens as well as in the town of Elefsina, which is situated just northwest of Athens. Athens is located on the coast of the Aegean Sea but the sea did not keep the greater Athens area cool on that scorching day.

Higher temperatures tend to be reached on larger stretches of land as opposed to small islands. Islands are always more temperate than continents because the ocean mitigates temperature extremes. For this reason, with regard to the region of Oceania, it makes sense that the record high temperature was reached in Australia and not in one of many islands in the region such as Polynesia.

The highest temperature recorded in Australia was in the Stuart Range of Oodnadatta, South Australia, nearly in the center of the country. The high temperature of 123.0°F (50.7°C) was reached on January 2, 1960.

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Bob Henson

Wed 19 Aug 2020 18.00 AEST

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How hot was it at the Furnace Creek visitor center at Death Valley national park on 16 August 2020? It was so hot that the huge electronic temperature display (which serves as a ubiquitous selfie backdrop) went on the fritz. Parts of the blocky digital display malfunctioned, resulting in numbers even higher than the actual mind-melting high on what turned out to be a landmark day.

An automated weather station at the visitor center recorded a preliminary high of 129.9F (54.4C) at 3.41pm PDT on Sunday. Even for heat-favored landscapes such as Death Valley, it is remarkable for temperatures to inch into such territory so late in the summer, when the sun is considerably lower in the sky than at the summer solstice in late June. According to weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, the previous global record high for August is 127.9F (53.3C), recorded in Mitribah, Kuwait, in 2011.

If Sunday’s high at Death Valley is confirmed, it will be the planet’s highest temperature in almost a century and its third-highest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Owing to the fact that the two higher readings are in question, it may, in fact, be the hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth.

The 130F afternoon in Death Valley fits snugly in the “what next?” narrative of life in 2020. But because human-caused climate change is such a ubiquitous yet gradual process, it’s rarely at the top of the news. A surging societal issue will typically bump climate from the headlines. There’s been no lack of such US events in 2020, from the coronavirus pandemic to police brutality and the state of the US Postal Service ahead of the November elections.

Climate science, and common sense, warn that it would be unwise, however, to skip over what has just happened in the California desert.

While competing events jostle for our attention, the machinery driving the climate crisis lumbers onward. Even in a year when global carbon emissions are on track to dip by a few percent, thanks largely to reduced travel and shuttered workplaces, the total amount of carbon dioxide concentrated in the atmosphere will once again reach its highest value in millions of years, about half a percent more than in 2019.

The effects are perceptible. The Arctic experienced its first 100F day on record on 17 June when the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk hit 100.4F (38C). July 2020 was the hottest single month in more than a century of recordkeeping at such far-flung US locations as Phoenix; Miami; and Portland, Maine.

How can we be sure that the 130F reading really is the record-setter it appears to be? Even higher temperatures often make the rounds in newspapers or social media. However, these are typically drawn from thermometers exposed to the sun, which leads to readings higher than the actual air temperature, as was the case with the 145F (63C) reported from Kuwait in 2019. Official temperatures are collected from shaded instrument shelters, designed and outfitted under strict protocols established by the WMO (part of the United Nations).

The WMO, which also serves as the global arbiter of major weather records, plans to investigate the Death Valley report. Such post-mortems typically involve double-checking the temperature sensor’s performance, evaluating the station and its landscape, and assessing nearby observations to make sure they support the case.

The only readings hotter than Sunday’s that are recognized by WMO are 134F (56.7C) at Death Valley on 10 July 1913, and 131F (55C) at Death Valley on 13 July 1913, and at Kebili, Tunisia, in July 1931.

Questions swirl around those early 20th century values, though. For decades, the world’s all-time record high was believed to be the 136.4F (58C) reported from Al Azizia, Libya, on 13 September 1922. Weather historian Christopher Burt was skeptical: the value didn’t comport with nearby stations, and the thermometer design made it easy to misread the temperature.

Burt’s work with colleagues led to an overturning of the Al Azizia record by WMO in 2012, a saga documented in the Weather Underground film Dead Heat. Burt and Herrera have called out similar issues with the Death Valley and Kebili readings from the 1910s and 1930s. Thus far the WMO has not re-evaluated those.

Parsing the planet’s highest temperature by degrees, or tenths of degrees, may seem like a pedantic task in the face of a global climate crisis with vast consequences. Yet without careful, consistent measurement, it will be all the more difficult to keep track of a changing climate as it careens through our lives.

Death Valley is already a forbidding landscape, one where heat and dryness rule and few people spend more than a day or two. A warming planet is unlikely to yield more Death Valleys in our lifetimes. However, it is pushing saline water into the delicate freshwater landscape of the Everglades, attacking the namesake ice of Glacier national park, and triggering an onslaught of changes both subtle and profound to ecosystems across the continent.

With all this in mind, perhaps we should linger over a 130-degree afternoon a little longer.

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