UN weather agency affirms 2020 Arctic heat record in Siberia
UN weather agency affirms 2020 Arctic heat record in Siberia
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N. weather agency said Tuesday it has certified a 38-degree Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit) reading in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk last year as the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic, the latest in a string of “alarm bells about our changing climate.”
The World Meteorological Organization said the temperature “more befitting the Mediterranean than the Arctic” was registered on June 20, 2020, during a heat wave that swept across Siberia and stretched north of the Arctic Circle.
Average temperatures were up to 10 degrees Celsius more than usual in Arctic Siberia, playing a key role in forest fires, loss of sea ice and global temperature rises that made 2020 one of the three hottest years on record.
“This new Arctic record is one of a series of observations reported to the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes that sound the alarm bells about our changing climate,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas in a statement.
Verkhoyansk is about 115 kilometers (70 miles) north of the Arctic Circle and a meteorological station there has been observing temperatures since 1885, WMO said.
