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Temperature in Death Valley Today: 130 Degrees, Earth's Highest Since at Least 1931 (msn.com) 231

Posted by EditorDavid from the too-darn-hot dept.
The Washington Post reports: In the midst of a historic heat wave in the West, the mercury in Death Valley, California surged to a searing 130 degrees on Sunday afternoon, possibly setting a world record for the highest temperature ever observed during the month of August. If the temperature is valid, it would also rank among the top three highest temperatures ever reliably measured on the planet at any time and may, in fact, be the highest... The only two hotter measurements include the disputed 1913 Death Valley reading and a 131-degree reading from Kebili, Tunisia, set July 7, 1931, which is considered to be Africa's hottest temperature. But the Tunisia mark also has "serious credibility issues," according to Christopher Burt, an expert on extreme weather data...

The scorching temperature occurred amid a suffocating heat wave which has gripped the western U.S. since late last week, and is forecast to continue into the coming week. On Friday, Oakland hit 100 for the first time on record in August while Phoenix tied its hottest temperature for the month: 117 degrees. Then on Saturday, Needles, in California's southeast desert, soared to 123 degrees, its highest August temperature on record. Sacramento rocketed to 112 degrees Sunday, topping its previous August record of 110...

Scientists have found that the intensity, duration, and frequency of heat waves worldwide are increasing due to human-caused climate change.
And that's creating more problems, the Post continues: The heat has intensified a rash of fires which have erupted in recent days. A blaze in northeast California, between Redding and Reno, spawned a swarm of fire tornadoes prompting what is believed to be the first-ever issued fire tornado warning by the National Weather Service... Climate studies have also concluded that climate change is having a serious effect on wildfire activity in the West and Southwest. The Fourth National Climate Assessment, published by the Trump administration in 2018, warned that climate change had already increased the size of areas burned by wildfires by drying out forests and boosting the availability of wildfire fuel.

The report estimated that the area burned by wildfires in the past decade was twice what it otherwise would have been without climate change, painting a grim picture of the region's future.
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Temperature in Death Valley Today: 130 Degrees, Earth's Highest Since at Least 1931 More

Temperature in Death Valley Today: 130 Degrees, Earth's Highest Since at Least 1931

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  • Global warming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 16, 2020 @11:37PM (#60408851)

    Happened in 1931 then.

    • Re:Global warming (Score:4, Informative)

      by Q-Hack! ( 37846 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @12:54AM (#60408957)

      I personally remember several days of 133+ in Saudi Arabia back in 2004. Not sure why they think this is somehow a record event for the world.

      • Oh, that's simple. Because the highest official temperature in Saudi Arabia was 52C.
        Now, as to what your thermometers may have seen- I don't doubt you that you saw 133F.
        Here in Redmond, WA- we routinely see temperatures well above the official thermometer in Seatac.

        So, to summarize- it's a record because it's the highest (maybe) officially recorded temperature.
        It's kind of like a land-speed record. Lots of people claim their cars have gone 180, even though they couldn't breach 160 without strapping a r

        • Re: Global warming (Score:4, Informative)

          by jemmyw ( 624065 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @01:38AM (#60409061)
          The official temperature given is in the shade of of direct sunlight. So it'll nearly always be warmer in the sun on warm days than the forecast.

          • degrees in the shade [Re: Global warming] (Score:5, Informative)

            by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @08:58AM (#60410013) Homepage

            The official temperature given is in the shade of of direct sunlight. So it'll nearly always be warmer in the sun on warm days than the forecast.

            Correct, but wrong.

            The temperature "in the sun" is not the temperature of the air, it is the temperature of an object sitting in the sun. This depends completely on the color of the object, the infrared emissivity, and the convective coefficient and wind. You can easily get to over 100C (212F, for Fahrenheit lovers) with a properly chosen object. It's a property of the object and its environment.

            Temperatures are measured out of direct sunlight because we don't want to measure the properties of the object, we want to measure the properties of the environment.

      • I remember having to chase 7 polar bears off my porch in '99 and this year I'm only up to 3.
      • Iran's Lut desert still holds the official record of 70.7 Celsius. I have measured the temperature of a white concrete runway in the UAE at 72 Celsius - but the air was a little cooler maybe!

      • Worked in North Africa in the 80s and it often hit 132 in July and August. I am sure it went even hotter once or twice. 130 was a normal daytime high.

        This was recorded by a calibrated thermometer in a Stevenson Screen but still totally unofficial.

      • Having a freshly taped to window thermometer show 23C when there was bits of snow outside made me suspect the measurement wasn't sound.

        • A few years ago I was in late November sailing in south France, close to Toulon.
          At morning about 9:00 the "felt" temperature was close to 0C. We all where wearing thick jackets, scarfs and some even a winter cap. A strong mistral, over 7 bft was blowing, that is why we did not went out sailing right away.

          Then we reached the coffee shop, ordered breakfast, sat in a sunny wind proof corner, in T-shirts and were sweating.

      • "Remembering things" doesn't count; official records do.

      • I personally remember several days of 133+ in Saudi Arabia back in 2004. Not sure why they think this is somehow a record event for the world.

        Lots of locations have higher temperatures, due to the construction of impromptu solar ovens - often called "pavement" and "buildings", but there is a reason that meteorologists do not take official temperature readings in solar ovens.

  • 130 F ~ 54,45 C (Score:5, Informative)

    by vskjefst ( 455144 ) on Sunday August 16, 2020 @11:41PM (#60408859) Homepage

    For those of us who are not in the US.

    • 54,45 C = 54.45 C (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mr0bvious ( 968303 ) on Sunday August 16, 2020 @11:44PM (#60408867)

      For those of us who are not in DE.

      • Personally, I would have moderated you funny. I constantly rib my German friends over their use of commas.

        • Re: 54,45 C = 54.45 C (Score:5, Informative)

          by shitzu ( 931108 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @01:49AM (#60409081)

          There are more countries that use comma as a decimal separator than Germany. The dot thing is mainly for English-speaking dudes who rarely know a second language.

          • There are more countries that use comma as a decimal separator than Germany.

            Yup.

            The dot thing is mainly for English-speaking dudes who rarely know a second language.

            Yup.

            Parent mentioned DE specifically, which I found funny, because I like to rib my German friends over their use of a comma.
            I took 3 languages in high school, so I'm plenty familiar with the use of comma as a decimal separator. Doesn't bother me either way.

            But end of the day, English is the lingua de franca of the world.... for a little while more, yet. So eat me ;)

          • Yeah, all those English speaking dudes in China and India who don't know any other language...

          • The comma thing is mainly for European dudes who rarely know anything about how shit works around the world.

          • Re: 54,45 C = 54.45 C (Score:4, Funny)

            by nagora ( 177841 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @04:40AM (#60409367)

            There are more countries that use comma as a decimal separator than Germany.

            Which doesn't change the fact that it's a really terrible idea.

            • If we consider a comma a pause and a full-stop (or period) a stop, then using the full-stop as separator between the integer and decimal portion makes more sense.

              The problem is changing things now could end up causing people financial grief.

              • If we consider a comma a pause and a full-stop (or period) a stop, then using the full-stop as separator between the integer and decimal portion makes more sense.

                The stop was used instead of the pause because the pause is already used to separate portions of numbers. It doesn't really matter what you use as long as you're consistent... whoops!

                It makes dramatically more sense for everyone to use one standard. Alas...

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by quenda ( 644621 )

            The dot thing is mainly for English-speaking dudes who rarely know a second language.

            It is also for anyone who wants to speak English as a second language properly. Writing English with foreign punctuation is a classic newbie error.
            ( I tried to make a joke using non-English punctuation, but slashdot's lack of unicode support defeated me.)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by pjt33 ( 739471 )

              Is it not easy to do a joke about non-English punctuation with a rhetorical question and French punctuation rules ?

          • The dot is the standard mathematical notation (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @06:06AM (#60409497) Homepage

            .. for a decimal point and its also used in all japanese/chinese calculators. Its actually the european countries who are the odd ones out.

          • Some of us use commas and dots! Commas for whole numbers and dots to denote decimals.

            1,234,567.890 would be a very large, very exact number.

            So if 54,45 is 54 and 45 1/100ths, what if you added another significant digit? Would that still be 54,456? That would be really confusing.

        • For those of us who are not in DE.

          Personally, I would have moderated you funny. I constantly rib my German friends over their use of commas.

          I'm glad I read your reply before I went ahead and asked the parent to your message what the heck "DE" was.

          I learn something new every day, never knew Germany somehow == "DE".

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Shotgun ( 30919 )

        True story:

        Was working on a project for a sales organization driven company. The goal of the project was to process 160GB of data in real time to produce complex metrics. For some reason, the design document listed 160GB as 160,000MB. The lead designer was a German dude that talked to fast, which convinced the CEO that couldn't find her ass with both hands that he must be some kind of wunderkind. He was slightly above average, but not exceptional.

        He was going on and on with these great designs, which amo

    • Way back in late 70s I visited Germany. I had left California temperature which hit 106 I think (they take temperatures at airports, which is always a few degrees hotter). When I told the people in Germany this, they pulled out their calculators to convert so Celsius. They looked at the number, then computed it again. Then they started arguing about what the correct formula was. Then they finally admitted that maybe it actually was that hot.

      • Western Europeans have no real concept of heat. To them 100F/38C is considered hot. Hitting 106, 110, and even 115F/46C, all with high humidity is basically, par-boiling. And doing 130F/54C with low humidity is all about creating human jerky.

        With AGW, Europe will likely find out all about these temps, at least in Spain, greece, etc.

        • And you Sir have no clue about heat in Western europe ... rofl.
          Sure - we have no spot with 130F/54C ATM, but I had in Greece easily +50C already 20 year ago.
          Ofc, one could argue it was cheating, a a hot desert wind from north Africa brought the heat.
          But that is exactly the same that is happening in death valley.

          Both, Karlsruhe in Germany and Paris in France regularly top +40C. I think my highest in Karlsruhe was 46C.

  • Temperature of cooked meat (Score:5, Funny)

    by guacamole ( 24270 ) on Sunday August 16, 2020 @11:49PM (#60408881)

    I normally target 130F for my medium rare steaks.

  • oh well (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymouse Cowtard ( 6211666 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @12:36AM (#60408939) Homepage
    At least we were warned.

  • Seriously, solar panels are cited to provide a cooling effect on the roofs. It not only produces "free" electricity, but also lowers the cooling costs.

    I am not sure how easy it would be, but we need to somehow take out the excess heat from the Earth ecosystem. The nature does that by melting the polar ice sheets, but obviously that is less than ideal. Since the Sun is essentially working for free, a combination of solar panels, plain old water tanks colored dark for showers, some ingenious architecture meth

    • I am not sure how easy it would be, but we need to somehow take out the excess heat from the Earth ecosystem.

      Solar panels ain't gonna do that. They have a very low albedo.
      Of course they help in the offset of carbon emissions- no doubt about that. But they're highly efficient at converting shortwave radiation into longwave radiation- what you might know as "the temperature"

      • I am not sure how easy it would be, but we need to somehow take out the excess heat from the Earth ecosystem.

        Solar panels ain't gonna do that. They have a very low albedo.

        You can get rid of about half of it by giving them a (cheap) surface coat of an infrared-window coupling pigment (such as 8 nanometer glass beads). That's good for about 95 watts of cooling per square meter 24/7 (if the sky is clear), about 2280 watthours per day. Insolation is about a kW per square meter, times about 5 solar hours per d

        • Insolation is about a kW per square meter, times about 5 solar hours per day for 5 kW.

          Make that 5 kWh.

        • You can get rid of about half of it by giving them a (cheap) surface coat of an infrared-window coupling pigment (such as 8 nanometer glass beads).

          What does that do? Nothing short of making them more reflective is going to solve the albedo "problem" (which isn't really a problem, merely an important fact in the context of them removing heat from the Earth's ecosystem)

          Also paint a little more than the panels' area of something else (like the roof of the building you'd like to stay cool) and you can actually get ahead of replacing the solar panels with mirrors or pure white painted surface.

          Definitely.

          Coating solar panels should more than pay for itself because slightly cooling the panels makes them generate more power, so it's a cheap way to increase their output rating.

          And is probably just a good idea in general, since the heat island effect of large solar installations is documented, and an unwanted side effect.

      • we need to somehow take out the excess heat from the Earth ecosystem.

        Solar panels ain't gonna do that. They have a very low albedo.

        They also have a white rear surface, so most of the heat energy not removed via conduction and subsequent convection is radiated as infrared... upwards. So then the problem becomes GHG, not the solar panels. If there's not a bunch of CO2 or water vapor in the way then much of the energy escapes the atmosphere.

        • So then the problem becomes GHG, not the solar panels. If there's not a bunch of CO2 or water vapor in the way then much of the energy escapes the atmosphere.

          This planet is an uninhabitable ice ball without GHG. There will *always* be significant heat island effects from large areas of low albedo stuff. Are you seriously trying to argue otherwise?

          • This planet is an uninhabitable ice ball without GHG.

            Irrelevant objection. It's levels of GHG which are the problem, not that they exist.

            There will *always* be significant heat island effects from large areas of low albedo stuff.

            If the solar panels were laying on the ground and their heat was being absorbed then it would be a substantial problem, as the ground would store the energy. But they aren't, so it doesn't, and therefore it isn't.

            • Irrelevant objection.

              It wasn't an objection- it was context. You stated that the problem is a requisite to human life, which is stupid.

              It's levels of GHG which are the problem, not that they exist.

              This is flatly false, again, unless we're discussing the context of snowball earth.

              If the solar panels were laying on the ground and their heat was being absorbed then it would be a substantial problem, as the ground would store the energy. But they aren't, so it doesn't, and therefore it isn't.

              That's some astounding ignorance right there.
              Please, educate yourself. [nasa.gov]

    • Re:Go Solar (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @01:33AM (#60409055) Journal
      The problem is all of the fucking idiots that push Solar on good ground. Such ppl should be remanded to the nut house with trump.

      Solar PV over ground is foolish. Solar PV over roofs/parking lots is intelligent because light=>90-95% heat,
      changes into
      light=>20-30% electricity, 30-20% reflection and about 50% heat.
      And with it on a roof, it will actually cool the inside of that building a great deal.

      • Because there is no unused land anywhere on Earth, every single square meter is needed for crops, which can be grown everywhere, because there is always plenty of water, and unlimited demand, and there are no plants that actually require shading through part of the day (shade houses for plants simply don't exist), or else is critical habitat that cannot be disturbed (with no land category in between)?

        • It's not inherently bad to put solar farms on the ground, so long as it's not ground useful for something else.

          Putting them in the desert for example is a great idea. You can clean the panels in that environment with mostly compressed air, you don't need much water. And the panels could be collecting the water you will need.

          But back on message, until the easily accessible roofs and parking lots are covered, it doesn't make sense to put panels anywhere else. Parking lots in particular are ideal places to put

    • I build a solar powered shower for my wife in Thailand.

      Just a 200yards long black plastic hose :P

      The next step is to build a small tower and indeed put an about 100l plastic tank on it + the hose on the roof.

  • and open up more nat gas plants.
    WAY TO GO California. Joining Germany, China, Japan, etc in lack of planning and logic.

    As it is, California is going through a large number of rolling blackouts due to heavy use of AC and not enough electricity because of closing SONGs and not replacing it with anything but small nat gas plants.
    • Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Station is old. So was the now closed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Edison International replaced the steam generators at SONGS with "upgraded" ones from Mitsubishi that failed in 2 years instead of the 40 year rated life. It was a colossal engineering failure and an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars. The reactor was shut down, the generating station closed, and the decommissioning process is ongoing and will continue well into the future. The costs of maintaini

      • The only good place for California new nuclear would be to add more units at Palo Verde. California is a great placw, so long as you don't let it try to govern anything.

  • Farenheit only ?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by medoc ( 90780 )

    This is really preposterous.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      Death Valley is in California
      California is in the USA
      In the USA we use degrees Fahrenheit

      Anyone using deg F for science is dumb. But this is not science. This is just reporting. Fahrenheit is a superior scale for human use. 0 is really cold, 100 is really hot, the average person doesn't need to know where freezing and boiling points are because things are frozen or boiling when they get there. They're not trying to figure out how many electrons they're going to need to pass through a wire to heat their kett

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Fahrenheit is a superior scale for human use

        Is it fuck. Water freezing at 0 and boiling at 100 is easily relatable.

        But if 0 is really cold, 100 is really hot, 130 is what? Really really hot? How the fuck is that different to 0C is cold, 100C is too hot and 55C is thank fuck I don't live there?

        , the average person doesn't need to know where freezing and boiling points are because things are frozen or boiling when they get there

        As I said, it's relatable. It helps them understand the scale.

        For instance,

        having to know that 1g = 231ci = 8.3lb is silly

        I concur. Just as silly as having to know that there'll be ice on the roads if the temperature hits 32F. Because 32 is such an obvious number. Everybody knows about 32, it's a naturally o

  • Article is wrong (Score:2, Insightful)

    by stooo ( 2202012 )

    Are the units in C or K ?
    Nobody knows.
    Article is completely wrong and misleading.

    • A US based news source on an english speaking site based in the US. A real head scratcher what units they're talking about.

      • Are we talking magnetic or geographic degrees ? And are we taking magnetic deviation into account or not ? 130 degrees isn't so much. And even if it would be over 360, you are just turning around. What's the big deal ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
      The recorded temperature could be 130C or 130K and people would still be in denial that there is any issue.
  • According to some sources I know there's been a policy to put out fires caused by lightning strikes, as such this is caused a great deal of pine straw to build up and dry out in areas ... feet of this stuff exists in some places, causing fires to burn hotter and longer, causing soil glassification (fusing the silica crystals into glass) that is killing the soil making it much harder for the forests to regenerate ....
    • I've been to death valley and I didn't see any pine trees.

    • All true, but with limited relevance to death valley because of its location. That part of California has never had much tree cover. However, the coast from about Point Sur up well into Canada (and inland to the coast ranges) used to be essentially unbroken redwood forest, and that had dramatic influence on weather patterns for the rest of the state. Some of the first laws on the books in California were to stop natives from setting the fires that controlled the undergrowth, because white people wanted to b

  • There you go. That's what it costs to drive huge SUVs/trucks, have huge houses in deserts with air-conditioning on all the time, insufficient regulations to make sure that buildings are anywhere near acceptably energy efficient, eat more meat than is feasibly healthy for anyone (animal agriculture is a major contributor to global warming), & stick your heads in the sand & refuse to believe that this kind of thing was predicted for decades & do nothing. Now you have to start to pay the real price

  • Global warming (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tacokill ( 531275 ) on Monday August 17, 2020 @10:10AM (#60410279)
    How did it get so hot back in 1931 without all of the global warming and greenhouse gases? What proves that the higher temps we are experiencing today are related to global warming? If we got to 130F / 55C back in 1931 why is it notable that we've reached that temperature again?

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