New Record Temperature Recorded in the Arctic

Verkhoyansk, Russia, is above the Arctic Circle, north of Yakutsk, and is known as the "Pole of Cold," meaning that's where the lowest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was recorded. That would be −67.8°C (−90.0°F) in 1885. Verkhoyansk has now broken another record, as the first town above the Arctic Circle to ever record a temperature of 100°F.

Alarming heat scorched Siberia on Saturday as the small town of Verkhoyansk (67.5°N latitude) reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, 32 degrees above the normal high temperature. If verified, this is likely the hottest temperature ever recorded in Siberia and also the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle, which begins at 66.5°N.

The town is 3,000 miles east of Moscow and further north than even Fairbanks, Alaska. On Friday, the city of Caribou, Maine, tied an all-time record at 96 degrees Fahrenheit and was once again well into the 90s on Saturday. To put this into perspective, the city of Miami, Florida, has only reached 100 degrees one time since the city began keeping temperature records in 1896.

Read about the record and the Siberian heat wave at CBS News. -via Mental Floss

(Image credit: Becker0804)

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As an American, I think we should just switch. It would be annoying, but everyone would adjust in 15-20 years, maybe less. We could stop wasting all the time and effort converting units back and forth. It's long overdue.

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Ahh the Northern Hemisphere. The "also ran" of extreme cold temperatures. Coldest ever beaten by 20 whole degrees C! (−89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184.0 K) at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983). Although they all sound wayyy too cold for me it seems a bit dishonest to just tot in "northern hemisphere record" without acknowleding quite how much Antarctica beat it by. To be fair, Antarctica's hottest ever was a "mere" 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.94 degrees Fahrenheit). Which interestingly is about 20 degrees C from the hottest in the artic circle.. with about the same difference in minimum too!

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Might be nice for virtually everyone else on the planet to include the Celsius scale, also known as the centigrade scale, in articles, even if they are promoting a non-story as described by Sean above. After all, it is only in the United States, the Bahamas, Belize, the Cayman Islands, and Liberia that Fahrenheit is used.

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Stories like this are an example of how to sensationalize events by describing them out of context. Yes, the temperature of 100.4°F set a new record... but it beat the previous record, set in 1915, by a mere 0.4°F. Clearly, an increase in record high temperature of 0.4°F over a century is a dire consequence of global warming, and a single day's high temperature is obviously entirely anthropogenic in nature.