A northeastern Siberian town is likely to have set a record for the highest temperature documented in the Arctic Circle, with a reading of 100.4 degrees (38 Celsius) recorded Saturday in Verkhoyansk, north of the Arctic Circle and about 3,000 miles east of Moscow. Records at that location have been kept since 1885.
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.
On Sunday, the same location recorded a high temperature of 95.3 degrees (35.2 Celsius), showing the Saturday reading was not a fluke. The average June high in Verkhoyansk is just 68 degrees (20 C.).
The town of about 1,300 is located farther north than Fairbanks, Alaska, and is known for having an unusually wide temperature range. During the winter, Verkhoyansk is one of the coldest spots on Earth, with temperatures frequently dipping well below 50 below.
So far in 2020, Siberia has stood out for its above-extreme temperatures, which has accelerated the melting of snow and ice; contributed to permafrost melt, which led to a major oil spill, and got the Siberian wildfire season off to an unusually early and severe start.
While some questions remain about the accuracy of the Verkhoyansk temperature measurement, data from a Saturday weather balloon launch at that location support the 100-degree reading.
Recent weather trends are likely to continue, with computer models showing continued extreme warmth in northern Siberia in the next 10 days, spilling over into parts of Canada, Scandinavia and, eventually, most of the Lower 48 states.
The Siberian Arctic, like the Arctic as a whole, is seeing rapidly increasing temperatures as a result of human-caused global warming.
