The coldest place on Earth is in Antarctica and has recorded 93 ... - The País.com (Spain)

permanently inhabited coldest places on Earth, outside Antarctica, are in northeastern Siberia, in the towns of Verkhoyansk and Oimekon where thermometers dropped to 67.8 degrees Celsius in 1892 and 1933, respectively . But there is even colder places on the planet. In the white continent has broken the all-time record low recorded temperature: 93.2 degrees Celsius, the August 10, 2010. Are the results of analyzes of temperature maps of the more detailed earth that have been obtained so far and which is based on data 32 taken from satellites. The research team has presented the work at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union held this week in San Francisco (USA).

coldest parts of the world have been located near a ridge between the peaks Argus and Fuji ice in the eastern Antarctic shelf. The 93.2-Zero August 10, 2010 moved the previous cold record, registered in the Russian research station Vostok in East Antarctica, measured minus 89.2 in 1983. “We suspected that this Antarctic ridge could be extremely cold, but the Vostok base, because it is more height,” said Ted Scambos, one of the leaders of the National Data Center Ice and Snow in Boulder, and the team member who has Indeed this new study.

Research on low temperature reached on Earth began began with the study of large snow dunes, sculpted and polished by the wind in the eastern Antarctic shelf, says NASA. When scientists observed the close, noticed cracks in the surface of the snow in the dunes, possibly formed when winter temperatures drop while the snow surface layer shrinks. Then they began to find the records of temperatures in the coldest places on Earth taken with two types of sensors on board satellites: the spectroradiometers Modis Terra satellite and Aqua , NASA, and the high resolution AVHRR radiometer embarked on several spacecraft NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

With these sensors, Scampos detected in the eastern Antarctic shelf, extremely cold temperatures on a strip of a thousand miles a ridge, high above, between the Argus and Fuji tops, and even lower temperatures crest points at lower elevations. With infrared heat sensor that takes high resolution Landsat satellite 8 , the researchers identified the extrafrías hollows and compared the data with topographic maps of the area to try to uncover the reason, NASA continues a statement.

temperatures, already very cold, fall quickly when the sky is clear and, if this situation persists for a few days, the ground cools even more radiating its remaining heat into space. This creates a layer of super-cold air over the surface of the snow and ice is denser than the relatively warmer air above, so that it slides down the slopes of the hills of the Antarctic shelf and at into the hollows in the ice, further downside, the researchers temperature.

“By remaining still air for long periods of time, while continuing to radiate more heat into space, the lowest temperatures are reached we found,” says Scambos. “We thought we were going to find a magic point extremely cold, but we have discovered a great band Antarctic, at high altitude, extremely cold, where these record low temperatures are reached.”