Death Valley gains title of hottest place ever recorded on Earth

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

For nearly a century the Mediterranean city of El Azizia in northern Libya has held the official title for having been the hottest place on Earth ever recorded.

But the world record was taken away on Thursday after an investigation by the World Meteorological Organisation found the measurement was probably bungled by someone who misread a thermometer.

A panel of experts convened by the WMO raised five serious concerns over the historic claim that the mercury reached 58C in 1922 at what was then an Italian army base on the Libyan coast.

The inquiry began in 2010, but was suspended when Khalid El Fadii, who played a leading role as director of the Libyan National Meteorological Centre, went silent for eight months after fleeing Tripoli during the recent revolution. He later resumed the work.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/sep/13/el-azizia-libya-title-hottest-place-recorded

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I went to DV in spring 08, when it was only in the 70s or 80s.

[slackmaster]

1. Excellent. Correcting mistakes is one of the most important functions of real science.

[sakabatou]

10. True

Too bad people see it as a weakness in science. It's a big strength in actuality.

[meegbear]

2. USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

[Cleita]

3. Death Valley isn't so horrible except in the summer.

Actually, a lot of Snowbirds spend the winter there because it's so pleasant.

[Mr.Turnip]

4. Iv been to Death Valley in late spring, temp was genneraly in the 90s.

Really unique place though.

[Retrograde]

6. And it gets below freezing on winter nights

Coldest I've ever been while camping.

If you can arrange it, visit during a full moon right after a snowfall: the moonlight reflecting off the light-colored soil and the snow on the pieaks is bright enough to see colors by.

[Canuckistanian]

5. Full story here on Weather Underground

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=89

[Javaman]

7. I had the opportunity to work in DV, on a commercial, back in August of '92.

it reached 126 degrees one day.

We would work from 7am to 11:00, break then go back at 4pm and work till sundown.

It was fucking hot. Like deliriously hot. Witheringly hot. Like hot you have never experienced.

We were using an Arri-flex camera. They are black. We would put on our lunch cover (a reflective blanket) to keep it from getting into the bazillions of degrees. In with the blanket the camera was still to hot to touch. Changing mags and pulling focus was a charm.

When we would break, we would go back to our motel rooms at Furnace Creek. While there, we would move from shade to shade (which was about 105 to 107). While there, we would watch these very fair skinned European tourists just walking around in the heat with no sun screen. We tried warning them. But they would answer us with, "In Europe we don't have this kind of landscape or heat, we want to get the full experience!" Then smile and walk away. A few of them we met again later on, they were fried.

The water out of the faucet was 86 degrees all year round. if you took a shower, the first 2 minutes of it was cool water. It was what was in the pipes, once it hit the well, it was hot.

they had a pool at the motel. After a days shoot, me and the rest of the crew thought, "Let's cool off in the pool!" The town is called Furnace Creek dumb-ass. It was like bath water.

It was a great experience never the less, and would love to go back sometime in the early spring when the weather is much nicer and DV actually gets a small amount of rain.

[davidthegnome]

8. Wow

"But the world record was taken away on Thursday after an investigation by the World Meteorological Organisation found the measurement was probably bungled by someone who misread a thermometer. "

So someone achieved a world record for misreading a thermometer? Makes me wonder about the validity of those world records....

[happyslug]

13. The themometer used was easy to misread.

If you look at the right side of the Thermometer, you will see the words "Maxima" on it. You will see the mercury and above it you will see a metal gauge (NOT the huge arms on the side, the little metal gauge near the 50 degrees mark on this picture of the TYPE of thermometer used). The thermometer was designed to push up the gauge as temperature rose, and then hold the gauge at the highest point the temperature went that date.

What is believed to have happened, is the person reading the gauge (who only started to read it two days earlier) looks at the TOP of the Gauge to see what the maximum temperature had been, instead of the BOTTOM of the Gauge, which where the gauge would have been pushed up to by the mercury as the temperature reached its maximum temperature. Given the design, easy to do UNLESS the reader is properly taught on how to read the thermometer.

I am sorry, given the design of the thermometer, I can see how someone can misread the temperature. Given that this was done as Mussolini took over Italy (Which ruled Libya at that time period), when the error was caught, the temperature had already been used in Italian scientific literature, thus no one wanted to tell anyone that the temperature reading had been wrong (Try explaining to "ll Duce". that something he or one of his top advisers had cited was wrong, think about it). Thus the error survived, even while the person doing the reading was taught how to read the gauge properly.

[Bossy Monkey]

9. ... Romney to accuse Obama of apologizing to Libya for taking their record n/t

[OnyxCollie]

11. Death Valley is my favorite place in the world.

Last edited Fri Sep 14, 2012, 10:12 AM - Edit history (1)

I want to have my ashes scattered on Aguereberry Point.

I've been there six times. Unfortunately, the job that afforded me those vacations is long gone.

On one trip the thermometer in our truck recorded 128 degrees. Driving with the windows down is like sitting in front of the furnace vent.

Drinking water was done constantly; if you didn't, you would notice a pressure building up around your head. I got overheated once walking out far on the dunes to retrieve my friends. On the way back, I took the most direct route to get to the truck, crashing through whatever was in my way. Scary.

The desert can mess you up bad.

[WooWooWoo]

12. you ain't felt hot

till you've been in Afghanistan in July. With calf-length thick socks, thick boots, pants tucked into boots, a t-shirt, blouse, body armor, gloves, helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, camel back, M4 assault rifle....

.... and humping 50-pounds of ammunition....


....through the mountains....


...of Afghanistan....

...in July.

Average temperature = 120 degrees.