Much of the U.S. and Europe have been facing record high temperatures and relentless heat domes this summer, but the Earth’s most southern continent just recorded a new low temperature.
On July 18, Concordia Station in Antarctica hit minus 119 degrees. This is the lowest temperature recorded on Earth since 2012, per The Weather Channel. It is also within a half degree of Concordia’s all-time low temperature.
While we are facing a hot, sweaty summer — Salt Lake City experienced its hottest day on record on July 12 when temperatures reached 109 degrees — Antarctica is in the dead of winter.
Concordia is in the right spot for extreme cold, located over 10,000 feet up on the interior ice sheet. There, the air is thin and bone-dry, meaning there’s almost nothing to hold on to what little heat exists.
Concordia’s minus 119 degrees last week is still short of Earth’s all-time record of low temperature. On July 21, 1983, Russia’s Vostok Station in Antarctica reached minus 128.6 degrees.
Earlier this month, Death Valley reached 121 degrees, which means there was a 240 degree temperature difference on Earth in the same month.
According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, the hottest temperature ever recorded was on July 10, 1913, when Death Valley reached 134 degrees.
During winter, Antarctica experiences Polar Night, which brings months of constant darkness. There’s still quite a bit of winter to go in the Southern Hemisphere, where temperatures usually bottom out in late August, just before the sun returns, so it’s possible more cold readings are still to come.
