Since that study, software improvements have sharpened MODIS's resolution from 5-kilometer pixels to 1-kilometer pixels, bringing even hotter spots into focus. In 2011, Mildrexler and his colleagues gleaned from MODIS data that summer temperatures routinely soared above 60☌ (140☏) in arid regions, with a high of 70.7☌ (159.3☏) in Lut in 2005. Or the sand burning your feet at the beach," says ecologist David Mildrexler of the conservation organization Eastern Oregon Legacy Lands. "Think of your car sitting in a parking lot on a summer day and how the handle burns your fingers. Surface temperatures tend to run hotter than the air above, especially on sunny days when surfaces are heated both by air and the Sun's radiant energy. In areas without cloud cover, MODIS measures the infrared heat emitted by surfaces to take their temperature-essentially, how the soil, dirt, or ice would feel if touched. But vast swaths of Earth's surface, especially in remote regions, lack these instruments, leaving them out of the record books.įor the past 2 decades, a pair of Earth-observing satellites equipped with NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-an instrument that measures everything from ozone levels to phytoplankton abundance-have scanned the entire globe, day in and day out. More than 11,000 World Meteorological Organization manned and automated weather stations measure air temperatures in the shade, in ventilated hutches about 1.5 meters above ground level. border have recently reached a sizzling 80.8☌ (177.4☏). A new analysis of high-resolution satellite data finds the Lut Desert in Iran and the Sonoran Desert along the Mexican-U.S. Average summer temperatures, meanwhile, often rise above 45☌ (113☏).īut when it comes to surface temperature, two spots have Death Valley beat. Death Valley holds the record for the highest air temperature on the planet: On 10 July 1913, temperatures at the aptly named Furnace Creek area in the California desert reached a blistering 56.7☌ (134.1☏).
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