(Illustration: Section of the Dash-E Lut desert, located in Iran. Image found here).

Once considerd for a long time the hottest spot on earth, California’s own Death Valley, has now lost the hot seat to two other sites across the globe, according to a new study — Iran’s Lut Desert (pictured above), and the Sonoran Desert in Mexico — as the earth heats up further on its own outside those couple of furnace regions.
And the coldest place most-likely remains the same, Antarctica. The study was published early last month in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society — from the Abstract:

Most previous studies of extreme temperatures have primarily focused on atmospheric temperatures. Using 18 years of the latest version of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature (LST) data, we globally investigate the spatial patterns of hot and cold extremes as well as diurnal temperature range (DTR).
We show that the world’s highest LST of 80.8 °C, observed in the Lut Desert in Iran and the Sonoran Desert in Mexico, is over ten degrees above the previous global record of 70.7 °C observed in 2005.
The coldest place on Earth is Antarctica with the record low temperature of -110.9 °C.

Further from Universal-Sci a week ago:

A group of researchers took a look at Earth’s hot and cold spots using satellite data. They measured new record low and record high temperatures and came to the conclusion that Death Valley is not the hottest place on the planet after all. So what is the actual hottest place on Earth? And what is the coldest temperature they measured?
…
The temperature measured by satellite on the above-mentioned locations was a scorching 80.8 degrees Celcius (or 177,4 Fahrenheit). These numbers exceed the previous 2005 Death Valley record (measured at 70.7C or 159F) with more than 10 degrees Celcius.

The fact that the Iranian and Mexican deserts so convincingly knock Death Valley from its throne is partly due to the different methods of measuring that where used. The researchers stated that most studies in the past focused on extreme air temperatures rather than land surface temperature.

The shift from Death Valley to Mexico/Iran that emerged using satellite measurements didn’t surprise the research team. It wasn’t very likely that Death Valley was the hottest place on Earth. The fact that it is often claimed that it is the warmest place on Earth can partly be explained by the fact that only limited weather stations are set up in remote areas such as the Lut Desert and the Sonoran Desert. The record-breaking temperatures were simply not measured. That is why the researchers decided to use land surface temperature data collected via satellite.

Another contributing factor to the large discrepancy between the previous and current record temperatures is that land surface temperatures are typically higher than air temperatures because surfaces are heated by the sun’s radiant energy.

And on the opposite end of the temperature spectrum — the coldest:

The researchers not only measured the hottest locations on the planet but also identified the coldest spots.
The coldest place on Earth is Antarctica, with a record low temperature of -110.9 degrees Celcius (or -167,6 degrees Fahrenheit).

Once again, a significant discrepancy emerged between the current and previous record of -89.2 Celcius/116 Fahrenheit measured in 1983 (According to the World Meteorological Organization’s World Weather & Climate Extremes Archive)

The large difference with the previous record low temperatures can probably be attributed to the lack of weather stations in the remote regions of Antarctica that left certain cold areas out of consideration for a very long time.

The researchers received their data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite.

Added factor is climate change, which although researchers didn’t say, might/could have played a part in heating-up specific areas of the planet. In regards to cliamte change, by the way, another study/research discovered climate change is effecting probably the second-coldest spot on earth, the Arctic. And it’s another one of those, ‘worse than previous figured,’ reports — from the Guardian yesterday:

Sea ice across much of the Arctic is thinning twice as fast as previously thought, researchers have found.

Arctic ice is melting as the climate crisis drives up temperatures, resulting in a vicious circle in which more dark water is exposed to the sun’s heat, leading to even more heating of the planet.

The faster ice loss means the shorter north-eastern shipping passage from China to Europe will become easier to navigate, but it also means new oil and gas extraction is more feasible.

Calculating the thickness of sea ice from satellite radar data is difficult because the amount of snow cover on top varies significantly.
Until now, the snow data used came from measurements by Soviet expeditions on ice floes between 1954 and 1991. But the climate crisis has drastically changed the Arctic, meaning this information is out of date.
…
Robbie Mallett of University College London, who led the study, said: “Sea ice thickness is a sensitive indicator of the health of the Arctic — and, when the Arctic warms, the world warms.
“Thicker ice acts as an insulating blanket, stopping the ocean from warming up the atmosphere in winter and protecting the ocean from the sunshine in summer. Thinner ice is also less likely to survive during the Arctic summer melt.”

Changes in the Arctic are also increasingly believed to influence extreme weather such as heatwaves and floods around the northern hemisphere.
The rapid thinning of sea ice has consequences for human activities in the Arctic as well.
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“We are still learning about the changes to the Arctic environment, and one of the big unknowns — or less well-knowns – is snow cover,” said Walt Meier, at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, and not involved in the new research.
“The approach in the study is a significant improvement over older methods, and the results fit with other changes we’re seeing with Arctic sea ice, including earlier melt onset, lower summer ice cover, and later freeze-up.”

Prof Julienne Stroeve, at UCL, said: “There are [still] a number of uncertainties but we believe our new calculations are a major step forward. We hope this work can be used to improve climate models that forecast the effects of long-term climate change in the Arctic — a region that is warming at three times the global rate and whose ice is essential for keeping the planet cool.”

The study was published in the journal, The Cryosphere.

Heat and disaster:

“Mutation of the earth…”

(Illustration out front found here).