70.7°C · Lut Desert
Short answer: the highest officially recorded air temperature on Earth is 56.7 °C, measured in July 1913 in Death Valley, United States. If you look at how hot the ground itself gets, the Lut Desert in Iran is the hottest place on Earth: NASA satellites measured 70.7 °C there.
Some places on Earth get hotter than most of us can imagine. Below you can read where the highest temperatures have been measured, and why there are two kinds of records.
Air temperature or ground temperature?
Official weather records are about air temperature, measured 1.2 to 2 metres above the ground, in the shade. Satellites measure something else: how hot the land surface itself gets. According to NASA, the ground is often much hotter than the air above it, which is why satellite records are so much higher.
Death Valley (United States): 56.7 °C
In July 1913, 56.7 °C was recorded at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California. For decades the record went to El Azizia in Libya, where 58 °C was supposedly measured in 1922. In 2012 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ruled that reading invalid, partly because of errors by the observer, as Smithsonian Magazine reports. Since then, Death Valley has held the record again.
Lut Desert (Iran): 70.7 °C at ground level
In an analysis of seven years of satellite data, NASA found the highest land surface temperature in the Lut Desert: 70.7 °C in 2005. The Lut was the hottest place on Earth in several of those years. The Lut Desert is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Queensland (Australia): 69.3 °C at ground level
The second-highest surface temperature in the same NASA study was measured in the shrublands of Queensland: 69.3 °C in 2003.
Flaming Mountains (China): 66.8 °C at ground level
The red sandstone hills of the Flaming Mountains lie in the Turpan Basin in north-western China. NASA measured a surface temperature of 66.8 °C there in 2008.
Dallol (Ethiopia): hot all year round
Dallol in the Danakil Desert is known as one of the hottest places ever inhabited, not because of a single peak reading but because of its high temperatures throughout the year. The area is also famous for its brightly coloured salt flats and hot springs.
Travelling somewhere hot?
- Drink more than you think you need, even if you are not thirsty.
- Plan activities early in the morning or late in the afternoon.
- Never head into a desert area alone without telling someone where you are going.
Final edit: Jan Willem Beumer, editor-in-chief of Mindbogglingmedia
