Death Valley's Hottest Temperature Record Restored

The World Meteorological Organization panel has produced some new facts that prove that heat record held for nine years by El Azizia in Libya as invalid. As the Death valley National Park in California, USA, officially holds the title of the world's hottest place.

An in depth investigation was conducted on the long held world record temperature during 2010-2011. It was at El Azizia that the temperature recorded was 136.4 degree Fahrenheit.

The investigating committee that composed of climate experts from Libya, Italy, Spain, Egypt, France, Morocco, Argentina, United States, and United Kingdom, identified five major concerns with the 1922 El Azizia temperature extreme record.

The concerns they highlighted were problematic instrumentation, inexperienced observer, observation site over an asphalt-like material which was not representative of the native desert soil, poor matching of the extreme to other nearby locations, poor matching to subsequent temperatures recorded at the site.

Based on these findings, the WMO Commission of Climatology World Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes has invalidated the 58ºC temperature extreme measured at El Azizia in 1922

"This investigation demonstrates that, because of continued improvements in meteorology and climatology, climate experts can now reanalyze past weather records in much more detail than ever before.  The end result is an even better set of climate data for analysis of important global and regional questions involving climate variability and change," said Professor Randall Cerveny, Rapporteur of Climate and Weather extremes for the WMO.

After this assessment the official highest recorded surface temperature is 134 degree Fahrenheit measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch (Death Valley) California.

"This investigation demonstrates that, because of continued improvements in meteorology and climatology, researchers can now reanalyze past weather records in much more detail and with greater precision than ever before," Cerveny was quoted in UPI. "The end result is an even better set of data for analysis of important global and regional questions involving climate change."