The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on December 14, 2021 officially recognized the 38 degrees Celsius measured in Siberia in 2020 as a new record high for the Arctic, sounding alarm bells over climate change.
- The sweltering heat, equivalent to 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, was seen on June 20, 2020, in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk, marking the highest temperature ever recorded above the Arctic Circle, the World Meteorological Organization said.
- This is the first time the WMO has added record heat in the Arctic to its archive of extreme weather reports, and it comes amid an unprecedented wave of record temperature spikes globally, the UN agency said.
- 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 the changing climate, agency chief Petteri Taalas said in a statement.
- Verkhoyansk lies about 115 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle and temperatures have been measured there since 1885.
- The average temperatures across Arctic Siberia reached up to 10 *C above normal for much of the summer last year.
- The lowest temperature ever measured above the Arctic Circle was -69.6C and recorded on December 22, 1991, on Greenland.
GS TIMES UPSC PRELIMS 2022 CURRENT AFFAIRS BASED BASICS DAILY ONLINE TEST CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS QUIZ FOR STATE CIVIL SERVICE
