Where do you think the coldest place on Earth is? Probably, now many of you are thinking about Oymyakon, because you have heard something somewhere. But no. Oymyakon is just the coldest place in the vastness of Russia. In 1926, a temperature of -71.2 degrees Celsius was officially recorded there (according to unofficial data in 1938, it was -77.8 degrees Celsius). But there are much, much colder places on Earth. So cold that Oymyakon looks like a real warm resort against their background.
Take, for example, Antarctica, in different places of which at different times the absolute minimum temperature on our planet was recorded. And it looks like scientists have finally updated the record for this minimum.
An international team of glaciologists studying natural ice on the Earth's surface analyzed satellite data from observations of Antarctica and recorded a temperature of -98 degrees Celsius in the eastern part of the Antarctic plateau. Scientists have shared about their observations in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“I've never been in such cold conditions and I hope I never will. Every breath here will be very painful. There is a high likelihood of deep frostbite in the larynx and lungs if inhaled,”Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado Boulder told USA Today.
Such a low temperature, as shown by satellite data, was recorded in several small lowlands (up to 3 meters deep) in the eastern part of Antarctica during cloudless and dry weather.
The researchers clarify that the new data on the minimum temperature was obtained using several satellites: Terra and Aqua of the NASA aerospace agency, as well as several satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (USA). The analysis covered data collected from 2004 to 2016. During this period, scientists have recorded a drop in temperature to a minimum value a hundred times. Most often, the decline was noted in June, July and August.
Earlier, the record of the temperature minimum was recorded in July 1983 by Soviet scientists from the Vostok station. Then the thermometer dropped to -89.9 degrees Celsius. In 2004, the record was updated. Scientists at the Fuji Dome station in Japan recorded a surface air temperature of -91.2 degrees Celsius. Satellite data for 2010 showed a temperature of -93.2 degrees in the station area. Now, a minimum of -98 degrees Celsius has already been recorded here.
At the same time, the scientists explain that temperature data obtained from surface air, as well as from satellites, may differ slightly. Therefore, scientists tend to separate them. That is, the new study deals with the temperature that was recorded from space above the Earth's surface, and not directly from the air on the planet's surface. In the latter case, this data is collected by people at Arctic stations. At the same time, it is reported that collecting indicators in both ways is very important.
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The new data also told researchers how such record temperatures are generally possible. In addition to a clear sky and a light wind, to reduce the temperature to such values, the air must be very dry. A little moisture and the temperature will go up.
“In this area, the air gets incredibly dry from time to time. This allows heat from the surface of the snow to rise much more easily into the upper layers,”says Scambos.
Very cold and dry air fills the pockets of the lowlands and gets colder. This happens until the weather changes. Scientists say the temperature in theory could drop even lower here, but this will require the sky to stay clear even longer and the air to be even drier.
Nikolay Khizhnyak