The coldest place on Earth is nearing the ultimate limits of our planet

Antarctica

A spot of light reading during the current UK heatwave…how does minus 98 degrees Celsius at Earth’s surface sound? This study of Antarctic data finds that ‘the air needs to be extremely dry to get temperatures this far below zero. Any water vapour in the air tends to heat it up, albeit slightly.’

So cold it would be painful to breathe says ScienceAlert.

Just how cold can it get on Earth? Colder than we thought, apparently. A new study of satellite data reports that valleys in Antarctica’s ice sheets can reach close to minus 100 degrees Celsius (or minus 148 degrees Fahrenheit).

Very chilly then, and significantly below the previous record of minus 93 degrees Celsius (minus 135 degrees Fahrenheit) observed in the same area.

Scientists reached the new figure by looking again at remote satellite readings of temperatures on the East Antarctic Plateau, which covers the South Pole, and recalibrating these readings with updated data taken from weather stations on the ground.

The new low point is officially minus 98 degrees Celsius (minus 144 degrees Fahrenheit), a temperature that “appears to be about as low as it is possible to reach” according to the international team of researchers who worked on the new study.

“I’ve never been in conditions that cold, and I hope I never am,” one of the team, Ted Scambos from the University of Colorado-Boulder, told Doyle Rice at USA Today.

“I am told that every breath is painful, and you have to be extremely careful not to freeze part of your throat or lungs when inhaling.”

Such freezing temperatures occur in tiny pockets on the ice, the satellite readings show, up to 3 metres (or 9.8 feet) deep.

Note that this isn’t the same as the lowest temperature ever recorded using instruments at ground level. That honour goes to researchers at Russia’s Vostok Station, also on the East Antarctic Plateau, who gauged the temperature as minus 89 degrees Celsius (minus 128 degrees Fahrenheit) in July 1983.

These new temperatures are readings taken remotely from satellites in space, and scientists like to keep the two separate – here we’re talking about specifically the temperature of Earth’s surface, not the air just above ground, as a weather station would log.

Continued here.