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6/16/2014 Where Is the Hottest Place on Earth?

: Feature Articles
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What Does It Mean to be Hot?
On the warmest summer days, you may hear someone say: its a
hundred degrees in the shade. Its an old-fashioned phrase with an
unintended kernel of insight.
Air temperatures must be measured out of direct sunlight because the
materials in and around the thermometer can absorb radiation and affect
the sensing of heat. You feel this with your own body: if you stand in
direct sunlight, you feel warmer because your skin is being heated by
both the air and by the radiant energy from the Sun.
To make an air temperature reading according to the World
Meteorological Organization standard (PDF), a thermometer must be
situated 1.2 to 2 meters off the ground and shielded from direct sun
though it cannot be placed in the shade of a building, mountain, or tree
either.
Direct sunlight can heat
surfaces well above air
temperature. On one late winter
afternoon when the air was 54 F
(12 C), shaded areas ranged from
4046 F (4.08.0 C), while sunny
spots were from 5666 F (13
19 C). (NASA photograph by
Robert Simmon.)
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MODIS measures something different: land skin temperature. LST is a
measure of heating of the land surfacewhere solar energy is absorbed
and re-emittedand it is often significantly hotter than air temperature. If
youve ever walked barefoot across hot sand or pavement on a summer
day, you know the difference. The surface beneath your feet feels much
hotter than the air around your head.
Scientists first measured that difference in June 1915. Around the same
time that the Death Valley record air temperature was measured, an
analysis of the temperature conditions of air and soil was conducted in
the desert near Tucson, Arizona, Mildrexler explains. In the midday sun,
the temperature 0.4 centimeters below the soil surface was 71.5C
(160.7F). The air temperature, measured four feet above the ground, was
42.5C (108.5F).
Air temperatures, on the one hand, are moderated by circulationboth
Accurate air temperature
readings must be taken with
thermometers that are carefully
shielded from direct sunlight.
(Photograph 2006 Richard
Allaway.)
Dark pebbles help make Irans
Lut Desert the hottest place on
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the rising and sinking of air masses into the atmosphere, and the
horizontal movement of winds across the landscape. Moisture also
regulates how much heat can be stored in the air. The value of the air
temperature measurement, as opposed to land surface temperature, is
that it is what the human body, a building, or an ecosystem are feeling,
says Stuart Gaffin, a climate researcher at Columbia University and NASAs
Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Air temperatures largely dictate our
thermal comfort level.
On the other hand, land skin temperatures reflect the pure heating of a
parcel of ground by radiation from the sun, the atmosphere, and other
heat flows. Therefore, the hottest LSTs are likely to occur where the
skies are clear, the soil is dry, and the winds are light. The final ingredient
is the composition of the land surface. It should absorb most light and
reflect littlethat is, have a low albedoand it should not conduct heat
very well. Rocky deserts offer the perfect combination.
In their analysis, Running, Mildrexler, and Maosheng Zhao scrutinized
global MODIS measurements of LST from 2003 to 2009, paying special
attention to where the hottest satellite temperatures matched up with
the ideal terrain. To reveal the hottest spot on Earth, Mildrexler notes,
we focused on barren areas and sparsely vegetated, open shrublands.
The formula brought them to the Lut Desert in Iran. And to the badlands
of Queensland, Australia. And to the Flaming Mountain.
Earth. (Photograph 2005 Jafar
Sabouri, Geological Survey of
Iran.)
The dark surface of the
Shanshan dune field absorbs
sunlight more strongly than the
adjacent Flaming Mountain,
making it much hotter. (NASA
images by Jesse Allen and
Robert Simmon, using Landsat 7
data from the USGS Global
Visualization Viewer.)
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In five of the seven years2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009the
highest surface temperature on Earth was found in the Lut Desert. The
single highest LST recorded in any year, in any region, occurred there in
2005, when MODIS recorded a temperature of 70.7C (159.3F)more
than 12C (22F) warmer than the official air temperature record from
Libya.
But the Lut was not the hottest spot every year. In 2003, the satellites
recorded a temperature of 69.3C (156.7F)the second highest in the
seven-year analysisin the shrublands of Queensland. And in 2008, the
Flaming Mountain got its due, with a yearly maximum temperature of
66.8C (152.2F) recorded in the nearby Turpan Basin.
200309 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Seven years of satellite
temperature data show that the
Lut Desert in Iran is the hottest
spot on Earth. The Lut Desert
was hottest during 5 of the 7
years, and had the highest
temperature overall: 70.7 C
(159.3 F) in 2005. (NASA maps by
Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon,
using MODIS data from
Mildrexler et al., 2011.
| Int roduct ion What s t he Value of Land Skin Temperat ure?

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