Record Temperature Verkhoyansk

Subject: Environment

Context:

Temperatures exceeded 38C in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk on 20 June, the highest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic circle.

Concept:

• This new record breaks the Arctic town’s 32-year record it set on 25 July 1988, which was a sweltering 37.3 degrees Celsius set on 25 July 1988.
• The town of about 1,300 is located farther north than Fairbanks, Alaska, and is known for having an unusually wide temperature range.
• During the winter, Verkhoyansk is one of the coldest spots in the world, with temperatures frequently dipping well below minus-50 degrees.
• It has accelerated the melting of snow and ice; contributed to permafrost melt, and have gotten the Siberian wildfire season off to an unusually early and severe start.
• An international team of climate scientists found the record average temperatures were likely to happen less than once every 80,000 years without human-induced climate change.
• That makes such an event “almost impossible” had the world not been warmed by greenhouse gas emissions, they conclude in the study.
• The scientists described the finding as “unequivocal evidence of the impact of climate change on the planet”.