WMO confirms Arctic record-high temperature

The U.N. weather agency said on Tuesday it has certified a 38-degree Celsius reading in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk last year as the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic.

The World Meteorological Organization said Verkhoyansk is about 115 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle and a meteorological station there has been observing temperatures since 1885. Spokeswoman said the record reading was the first of its kind in a new category of Arctic temperature monitoring, so there was no previous record to compare it with. But 38 degrees has never been seen before in the Arctic, she said. WMO Secretary-General said “that new Arctic record is one of a series of observations reported to the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes that sound the alarm bells about their changing climate”.