Where is the coldest place on Earth, how cold is it, and is it inhabited?
There is a small town called Oyermiak in the northeastern Russian city of Yakutsk, which is the coldest inhabited place on earth, and the lowest temperature in history in winter has reached -71.2 ° C (1924)! And that's not all, it's said that the highest temperature here is often below zero a year, and even a year high of only -9.3 ° C.
Yakutsk
The town is currently inhabited by only about 600 people, all of whom are super cold-tolerant Yakuts. How resistant are these people to the cold? They don't close classes until -48°C in kindergartens and -54°C in primary schools!
Yakutians and dogs
For southerners who are cold at 2 ° C in winter, these numbers are simply trembling when they think about it.
In winter, you think they'll all hide in the house and burn the stove for warmth? In fact, on the contrary, they not only spend all day outdoors, but also chiseled through the half-meter-thick ice and jumped directly into the cold and bone-chilling river to swim! I really doubt that they share a common ancestor with polar bears.
Russians swim in winter
Of course, this is not the coldest place in the world, the coldest place on earth is in the southern hemisphere and not the northern hemisphere!
Home to penguins, Antarctica is the coldest continent in the world. In the Fuji Ice Dome Mountains in East Antarctica, in 2013, U.S. orbiting satellites detected temperatures as low as -93.2°C.
However, this lowest temperature record did not last long and was broken in 2018. Through analyzing the data of noAA's polar operating environment satellite, a scientific team in the United States found that there have been multiple observation points on the Antarctic plateau with a low temperature of about -98 ° C, which is the lowest temperature measured by humans on the surface so far.
Antarctic Plateau
Penguins are one of the most cold-tolerant animals in the world, they generally live between -60 ° C and -80 ° C, but for temperatures of minus 90 degrees, penguins are cold and shivering, and it is difficult to survive for a long time.
The lowest temperature above is only above the surface, and the lowest temperature measured on Earth is not the South Pole, nor the North Pole, but in the air. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's VIIRS weather satellite shows that in 2018, a tropical storm center formed over the Atlantic Ocean, the lowest temperature on Earth appeared, reaching -111.2 °C!
Satellite photographs of superstorms
The VIIRS satellite is an infrared imaging radiometer that collects radiation images of land, atmosphere, ice and ocean in the visible and infrared wavelengths, and can monitor changes in global temperature.
storm
Of course, these temperature values are only conceptual feelings, can not be experienced, and these temperatures are far away from most of us. However, due to the impact of the La Niña phenomenon in 2021, although it is not very cold now, it is likely to suddenly become cold in late winter and early spring, and I hope you will pay attention to the cold.