Around January 14, there was a wave of news in China, saying that the lowest temperature in Siberia reached -73 degrees Celsius and extremely cold, setting a record in the northern hemisphere, this news was very eye-catching, and soon appeared on Weibo and headline hot lists.
Media reports reported a low temperature of -73°C in Siberia, breaking the record for the lowest temperature in the northern hemisphere
My first impression when I saw this news was that there must be a problem, although the Siberian region is extremely cold, but the minimum temperature has been around minus 60 degrees, and the observation record has suddenly dropped by more than 10 degrees, which is not only very low, but almost impossible. The historical record of temperature is like the Olympic record of the 100-meter race, and "Lightning" Usain Bolt's improvement of the 100-meter record by 0.16 seconds is already an achievement that shocks the ancient world, and it is absolutely mythical to say which athlete can improve by 1 second at once.
My first instinct is that the temperature unit may be wrong, because the default temperature unit in the British and American reports is not Celsius °C, but Fahrenheit °F, and the conversion formula between the two is: F=C×1.8+32, if it is Fahrenheit -73 degrees, then converted into Celsius is only -58.3 degrees, if it is such a temperature, it is indeed very cold, but it will not exceed the historical record, because Siberia, the "cold pole of the world" The lowest temperature was recorded in 1979 at -65.6°C, and apparently -58.3°C is not a record.
I discussed my doubts with friends from The Paper and Tencent News, who quickly investigated, and on January 18, The Paper's "The Paper" smoothed out the ins and outs (see The Paper: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xwTE2LINM3OJlLeMRiP27g). First of all, it is indeed Celsius, not Fahrenheit, domestic reports from CCTV news CCTV4, and CCTV news quoted media reports from Russian Channel 5 (5-tv.ru) and a number of private TV channels (such as Krasnoyarsk State TV Station TVK), Russia generally uses Celsius, from the news transmission channel, this transmission chain is clear.
The first report of -73°C came from the measurement of a thermometer in the home of a Russian resident
Secondly, -73 ° C is not from meteorological observation stations, but from the measurement results of local residents in the village of Essej in Krasnoyarsk Territory, which greatly reduces the reliability of the data, on the one hand, the thermometer is not a special thermometer in meteorological observation, even if it is a special thermometer, it must be checked and corrected at regular intervals; On the other hand, the observation environment is difficult to standardize, because the thermometer of the meteorological observation field is placed in a standard louver box, the style and height of the shutter box, the environment in which it is placed have requirements, to ensure that not only can avoid direct sunlight and reflection, but also maintain ventilation on all sides, and maintain a certain distance from surrounding buildings, forests, mountains, etc. Obviously, it is difficult for the thermometer of the household to meet the requirements of the above two points
Data from the International Exchange of Weather Stations provide a ranking of Russia's lowest temperatures from January 11 to January 12, although the lowest temperatures did not exceed historical records.
According to surging news reports, Dmitry Ulyanov, chief forecaster of the Central Siberian Ministry of Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, said, "There is no weather station in the village of Essej, so I have not received official confirmation, and this temperature cannot be checked, if the local thermometer shows such a temperature, I doubt the reliability of the thermometer." The lowest temperature monitored by the nearest official weather station in Essej is minus 53-54°C, which is clearly not a record temperature.
The verification of historical records actually has to go through a certain process, not the temperature circulating on the Internet can be recognized by the meteorological department, and the final extreme value record also needs to be verified by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), in this process, many so-called extreme values will be removed and rejected. For example, on February 9, 2020, two extreme maximum temperatures were reported in Antarctica, one at 18.3°C at Esperanza in Argentina, and the other at 20.75°C reported by an automatic permafrost monitoring station in Brazil on the island of Seymour, when the news was full of news that the temperature in Antarctica was above 20°C. However, on July 1 of that year, the World Meteorological Organization confirmed the validity of the former and denied the latter.
The normative nature of the Esperanza Observatory in Argentina and the Seymour Permafrost Observatory is more visible to the naked eye.
WMO and the National Meteorological Service of Argentina and the Meteorological Agency of Brazil reviewed the observations, instruments and metadata. The Esperanza Observatory in Argentina, instruments and observation field are fine. After analyzing the data of Seymour, the Brazilian polar science research team believes that there are major problems in the data, the biggest problem is that the instrument has been modified, the original instrument is mainly to observe frozen soil, its simple radiation shielding cover will lead to obvious thermal deviation, obviously, this shielding on the one hand can not ensure the flow of air with the outside world, on the other hand, its gray color will cause heat absorption and heating, the temperature recorded by the internal temperature sensor will appear thermal deviation, so that the observed data lose validity.
From this, a revelation is that science is rigorous, and whether there is a historical extreme value in a certain place is not judged by the TV station, but needs to be judged by a professional organization, otherwise anyone can take a picture with a device and claim that there has been a record weather event.
Of course, professional institutions need time to judge, and news and news that come too quickly need to be a little skeptical, waiting for news and facts to "fly for a while".
In 2023, I will work with a group of young meteorologists to pay attention to the continuous fermentation and development of the climate crisis, bring you the latest climate information and disaster prevention and mitigation knowledge, and hope to help enhance the awareness and ability of the whole society to prevent and reduce disasters, minimize the casualties and economic losses caused by disasters, and protect our homeland together.