The northeastern Siberian town of Verkhoyansk is believed to have set an all-time high temperature record above the Arctic Circle Saturday when thermometers soared to 38°C/100.4°F. The town is located 4,800 kilometres north of Moscow, has been keeping temperature records since 1885, and normally sees an average June temperature of 20°C/68°F.
“If verified, this would be the northernmost 100-degree reading ever observed, and the highest temperature on record in the Arctic, a region that is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the globe,” the Washington Post reports. A reading of 35.2°C/95.3°F on Sunday showed the Saturday figure “was not an anomaly,” the paper adds.
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“In 2020, Siberia has stood out for its above-extreme temperatures, which have accelerated the melting of snow and ice; contributed to permafrost melt, which led to a major oil spill; and have gotten the Siberian wildfire season off to an unusually early and severe start,” the Post notes. “The oil spill in Norilsk—above the Arctic Circle in north-central Russia—leaked at least 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into the nearby Ambarnaya River and is thought to be the worst spill in the Russian Arctic’s history.”
Read the details in the Washington Post here.
