Record Arctic temperature of 38 degrees reached last year, UN agency confirms

An Arctic temperature record of more than 38 degrees Celsius was reached in a Siberian town last year during a prolonged heatwave that caused widespread alarm about the intensity of global warming, a UN agency confirmed on Tuesday.

Verkhoyansk, where the record temperature was hit on June 20th, 2020, is 115km north of the Arctic Circle – a region warming at more than double the global average.

The extreme heat at the time fanned wildfires across northern Russia’s forests and tundra, even igniting normally waterlogged peatlands.

"It is possible, indeed likely, that greater extremes will occur in the Arctic region in the future," the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said in a statement.

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The WMO inquiry into the temperature was one of a record number of investigations the UN agency had opened into weather extremes as climate change unleashes unrivalled storms and heatwaves.

Since Arctic records are a new category, the data needed checking against other records as part of a vigorous verification process involving a network of volunteers.

The record is now an official entry in the World Weather and Climate Extremes Archive, a sort of Guinness World Records for weather that also includes the heaviest hailstone and longest lightning flash.

A WMO committee is also verifying other potential heat records, including in Death Valley in California in 2020 and on the Italian island of Sicily this year. – Reuters