Anyone looking for the highest-ever recorded temperature is likely to encounter the same finding: Death Valley, July 1914, 134 degrees, per the National Park Service.
However, as Yellowhammer News reported, three University of Alabama, Huntsville, climate experts have challenged it.
What's happening?
Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John R. Christy are climate researchers at UAH. Spencer was digging through historical U.S. surface temperature datasets when Christy directed him to review world record data, and he looped in colleague Dr. William T. Reid.
According to Spencer, Reid had long been suspicious that Death Valley's infamous 134-degree reading was faulty, and he'd become "convinced the measurement was not made by Weather Bureau-approved equipment in an approved instrument shelter."
Spencer decided to continue digging, eventually coming to the same conclusion. From there, the three climate experts published a study in the September edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Reid and Spencer were both of the belief that because of Death Valley's reputation as a sweltering no-man's-land, the foreman of Greenland Ranch "felt this was a reputation that needed to be defended," per Spencer — and perhaps embellished.
"Long before the official instrumentation arrived at the ranch in 1911, the world already knew of claims that ranch thermometers had measured temperatures of 135 degrees F or higher," Spencer said.
"Then, after the 1911 installation of the approved instrument shelter, correspondence showed that all parties were a bit disappointed that the official readings did not match what was expected," he added, alluding to a motive for what researchers believed was a faulty reading.
The authors felt certain that inconsistent thermometer use produced deceptively high readings and that the foreman in question had a habit of juicing the temperature.
"Not only was the 134-degree F temperature suspect, but we found many other days in those early years that were too hot, especially in the first two weeks of July 1913, and all within the tenure of that one ranch foreman," Spencer added.
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Definitely 👍 Why is this important?
Although it might seem that the finding is about unraveling a century-old fabrication, there's an excellent reason these climate experts want the 134-degree reading rescinded.
Climate researchers require reliable historical data, such as the highest temperature ever recorded on Earth, to accurately assess modern data.
As they noted in their study, "in over a century of additional summers of official records in a warming climate, a reading of 130 degrees Fahrenheit from instrumented shelters would not be reached again until 2020 and again in 2021."
In July 2021, Yale Climate Connections reported that Death Valley "hit an astonishing 130.0 degrees Fahrenheit … beating the previous world record of 129.9 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius), set there on Aug. 16, 2020."
In other words, faulty data, such as the 1913 reading, can confound climate researchers' and the public's understanding of record-breaking temperatures today.
Extreme heat is a form of extreme weather, which is becoming increasingly common as the planet continues to overheat.
As the authors stated, Death Valley again set temperature records in 2022, 2023, and 2024 — but the faulty reading likely obscured that development.
What's being done about it?
The researchers "recommended that the world record status ... be rescinded," Christy told Yellowhammer News.
"But it will be up to a special committee of the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva to make that determination."
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