With a temperature of minus 69.6 degrees, Greenland now officially has the coldest record in the northern hemisphere.
This was confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN’s body for weather, climate and water, on Wednesday.
Although it is a new record, it is by no means a new measurement. The temperature was thus measured on 22 December 1991.
The temperature was recorded at an altitude of 3105 meters in the middle of the ice sheet close to the topographical peak.
It has only been discovered now that data from an automatic target station used for research in the 1990s has been reviewed.
The target station was set up by the University of Wisconsin-Madison at a place called Klinck in connection with a project where ice cores were drilled.
A climate historian drew the WMO’s attention to the measurement, and subsequently an expert group under the WMO reviewed and verified data and equipment.
John Cappelen, a climatologist at DMI, has been part of the group.
– It is a very low temperature, but it does not come as a surprise that you can get down around minus 70 degrees on the ice sheet under special meteorological conditions, says John Cappelen.
– It says something that there are great contrasts in the Earth’s climate. In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about heat records, but this record shows that there can be very large differences in temperatures, he says.
The previous cold record in the northern hemisphere was minus 67.8 degrees. It has been put twice in Russia in Verkhoyanksk in February 1892 respectively Oimekon in January 1933.
The coldest temperature on Earth is minus 89.2 degrees in Antarctica in July 1983.
Analyzes of satellite images suggest that there have been temperatures below minus 90 degrees, but they have never been verified.
The official cold record in Denmark was set on January 8, 1982 in Hรธrsted in Thy, where the thermometer showed minus 31.2 degrees.
Although it is a new record, it is by no means a new measurement. The temperature was thus measured on 22 December 1991.
The temperature was recorded at an altitude of 3105 meters in the middle of the ice sheet close to the topographic peak.
It has only been discovered now that data from an automatic target station used for research in the 1990s has been reviewed.
The target station was set up by the University of Wisconsin-Madison at a place called Klinck in connection with a project where ice cores were drilled.
A climate historian drew the WMO’s attention to the measurement, and subsequently an expert group under the WMO reviewed and verified data and equipment.
John Cappelen, a climatologist at DMI, has been part of the group.
– It is a very low temperature, but it does not come as a surprise that you can get down around minus 70 degrees on the ice sheet under special meteorological conditions, says John Cappelen.
– It says something that there are great contrasts in the Earth’s climate. In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about heat records, but this record shows that there can be very large differences in temperatures, he says.
The previous cold record in the northern hemisphere was minus 67.8 degrees. It has been put twice in Russia in Verkhoyanksk in February 1892 respectively Oimekon in January 1933.
The coldest temperature on Earth is minus 89.2 degrees in Antarctica in July 1983.
Analyzes of satellite images suggest that there have been temperatures below minus 90 degrees, but they have never been verified.
The official cold record in Denmark was set on January 8, 1982 in Hรธrsted in Thy, where the thermometer showed minus 31.2 degrees.
Source: The Nordic Page