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(Image credit: Getty Images)Įl Azizia, Libya, held the top hot spot for 90 years. The coldest temperature measured was in Antarctica. The coldest inhabited place is Oymyakon, Russia, a small village in Siberia, where it dips down to an average of minus 49 F (minus 45 degrees C) and once hit a low of minus 96.16 F (minus 71 degrees C). What are the most extreme temperatures on Earth?Īccording to the World Meteorological Organization (opens in new tab), the coldest temperature measured on Earth was at Vostok Station in Antarctica, where it reached minus 128.6 degrees F (minus 89.2 degrees C) on July 21, 1983. According to GISS data (opens in new tab), global average temperatures in 2020 were 1.84 degrees F (1.02 degrees C) above the 1951-1980 historical mean. GISS measures the change in global surface temperatures relative to average temperatures from 1951 to 1980. According to NOAA's data, average anomalies calculated for 2020 were 1.76 degrees F (0.98 degrees C) higher than the average temperatures for all the years in the 20th century. NOAA tracks anomalies relative to temperatures between 19. NOAA, on the other hand, uses different areas, and produces a more conservative estimate. That method means they can estimate temperatures using a smaller number of stations, especially in the polar regions. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) assumes that temperature anomalies are about the same up to about 1,200 kilometers from a station. Christian Braneon from Goddard Institute for Space Studies presents satellite data. Temperatures are less useful for climate researchers than temperature anomalies, so most temperature reports use temperature anomalies: the difference between current temperature and a historical average.Ĭlimate scientist Dr. Meanwhile, even researchers analyzing the same data can use different methods for calculating the global average - although all show an upward trend in average temperature over the past few decades.įor example, NOAA reported in a press release (opens in new tab) that 2020 was the second-warmest year on record, in agreement with the United Kingdom Met Office, while measurements from NASA (opens in new tab) and the European Union’s Earth observation agency Copernicus ranked it as tied with 2016 for the top spot. According to NASA Climate (opens in new tab), global temperature data comes from thousands of observation stations, but in some regions, such as unoccupied deserts and mountaintops, stations are more difficult to set up and maintain. It’s difficult to get good temperature estimates around the whole planet. But averaging temperatures around the whole globe does tell us a lot about the energy that circulates around the planet over longer periods of time, and can help researchers understand trends in climate change. After all, right now it’s night somewhere and daytime somewhere else, and while it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s summer in the Southern Hemisphere (and vice versa). (Image credit: Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory)Īt any given time on Earth, the temperatures at the hottest place and coldest place on the planet are probably almost 100 degrees F (55 degrees C) apart, according to NOAA (opens in new tab), so an average temperature for the whole planet doesn’t do much to tell you what the weather is like outside. This heat map displays the contrast in sea surface temperature.