THE COLD POLE OF THE WORLD
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THE COLD POLE OF THE WORLD By TERENCE ARMSTRONG Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge HE coldest place on earth haa for long been thought to be Verkhoyansk T on the River Yana in north-eastern Siberia (67"33'N,133"23'E, altitude 122 m). Since the middle 1930s, however, Soviet geography text-books have been claiming this distinction for Oymekon (or Oymyakon), a frost hollow on the upper Indigirka and about 400 miles south-eaat of Verkhoyansk (63"16'N, 143"15'E, altitude 800 m). K. A. Salishchev (1936) drew the attention of the English-speaking world to this change. Some further details have appeared since, however, and it may be useful to record these. The only period for which observations are available for both places is the four years 1930-33. Fig. 1 shows that Oymekon waa then consistently colder, and that the difference was more marked in the winter months. Early in 1934 the meteorological station a t Oymekon ww 'moved elsewhere'. The first station waa known as Oymekon-Tomtor, and its coordinates are those given above. Another station, called Oymekon or Oymyakon, is listed aa functioning in September 1936 (Glavsevmorput, 1936) and in 1949 (O.M.I., 1949); its position in 1949 was given as 63"28'N, 142"45'E-about 20 miles north-west of the old location. But no published observations at this station can be traced, although it is likely, in view of the development of gold-mining operations in the area, that a station functioned for much of this period. There is some confusion about what is the lowest air-temperature ever recorded a t ground level. Shostakovich (1928, p. 93) states that in February 1892 at Verkhoyansk a temperature of -694°C (-93.7"F) ww recorded, while Tikhomirov (1936) and Vize (1940, p. 85) imply that -67.7"C (-89-9"F), notad at Oymekon in February 1933, is the lowest ever noted. Both Vize and Suslov (1947, p. 135) give the Verkhoyansk absolute minimum, Vize dates it in 1892, as -67~6°C. This apparent contradiction is made the more mystifying by the fact that Vize in an earlier paper (1927, p. 259) confirms Shostakovich's figure of -694°C. The most reasonable explanation would seem to be that Shostakovich's figures were found to be inaccurate, but Vize, whose information is normally reliable, does not offer any explanation in his later paper. Some even more spectacular temperatures for Oymekon have been quoted outside the U.S.S.R : even -77.7"C (-108"F), but there does seem to be a chance that this is a misprint for the figure -67.7"C given above. The question of reliability of thermometcrs at these extremely low temperatures is one that requires attention, but it does not appear to have been the subject of study in the U.S.S.R. Summarising the foregoing, it is clear that Oymekon has replaced Verk- hoyansk as the coldest place we yet know of in the world, though it should be remembered that this conclusion is based on only four years' observations ; and the lowest air-temperature recorded on the earth's surface up to about 1946 368
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Transcript of THE COLD POLE OF THE WORLD
T H E COLD POLE OF THE WORLD By TERENCE ARMSTRONG
Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge
HE coldest place on earth haa for long been thought to be Verkhoyansk T on the River Yana in north-eastern Siberia (67"33'N, 133"23'E, altitude 122 m). Since the middle 1930s, however, Soviet geography text-books have been claiming this distinction for Oymekon (or Oymyakon), a frost hollow on the upper Indigirka and about 400 miles south-eaat of Verkhoyansk (63"16'N, 143"15'E, altitude 800 m). K. A. Salishchev (1936) drew the attention of the English-speaking world to this change. Some further details have appeared since, however, and i t may be useful to record these.
The only period for which observations are available for both places is the four years 1930-33. Fig. 1 shows that Oymekon waa then consistently colder, and that the difference was more marked in the winter months. Early in 1934 the meteorological station a t Oymekon ww 'moved elsewhere'. The first station waa known as Oymekon-Tomtor, and its coordinates are those given above. Another station, called Oymekon or Oymyakon, is listed aa functioning in September 1936 (Glavsevmorput, 1936) and in 1949 (O.M.I., 1949); its position in 1949 was given as 63"28'N, 142"45'E-about 20 miles north-west of the old location. But no published observations at this station can be traced, although it is likely, in view of the development of gold-mining operations in the area, that a station functioned for much of this period.
There is some confusion about what is the lowest air-temperature ever recorded a t ground level. Shostakovich (1928, p. 93) states that in February 1892 a t Verkhoyansk a temperature of -694°C (-93.7"F) ww recorded, while Tikhomirov (1936) and Vize (1940, p. 85) imply that -67.7"C (-89-9"F), notad at Oymekon in February 1933, is the lowest ever noted. Both Vize and Suslov (1947, p. 135) give the Verkhoyansk absolute minimum, Vize dates i t in 1892, as -67~6°C. This apparent contradiction is made the more mystifying by the fact that Vize in an earlier paper (1927, p. 259) confirms Shostakovich's figure of -694°C. The most reasonable explanation would seem to be that Shostakovich's figures were found to be inaccurate, but Vize, whose information is normally reliable, does not offer any explanation in his later paper. Some even more spectacular temperatures for Oymekon have been quoted outside the U.S.S.R : even -77.7"C (-108"F), but there does seem to be a chance that this is a misprint for the figure -67.7"C given above. The question of reliability of thermometcrs a t these extremely low temperatures is one that requires attention, but it does not appear to have been the subject of study in the U.S.S.R.
Summarising the foregoing, it is clear that Oymekon has replaced Verk- hoyansk as the coldest place we yet know of in the world, though i t should be remembered that this conclusion is based on only four years' observations ; and the lowest air-temperature recorded on the earth's surface up to about 1946
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is at Ieset 88 low as Oymekon's -67~7°C (-89*goF), and may be the -69.8"C (-93.7"F) at Verkhoyansk.
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*I
- I
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-I
-4
-!
- 4
-1
- - - - - vrnKnovANi* - 0YYEKON-TON10R
1
Fig. 1. Monthly absolute maximum, mean and absolute minimum air-tempratm at ground level at Verkhoyamk and Oymekon-Tomtor for the yeere 1930-33 inclusive (Tikhomirov, 1938).
REFERENCES Qlavsevmorput 1936 Dekadnyy Meteorologicheakiy i Ledovyv ByuUefen'
Nuzhby Pogody, Moscow, September 1936 O.M.I. 1949 List of synoptic stations of the U.S.S.R., Publiedions
d u S e t de 1'0rganaeotion bfdtdorologique Inter- nationale, Lausanne, No. 9, Fmc. 2, Suppl. 6, Annex
SALXSHCHEV, K. A. 1936 The cold pole of the earth, Geographied Review, New York, Vol. 26, No. 4, p. 684
8HOSTAKOVIOE, v. B. 1928 The climata of Verkhoyansk, Trudy Irkutakoy Magnitnoy i Meteordogicheskoy Obeem.otorii. Irhtak. No. 213, p. 87
SWSLOV, s. P. 1947 Fkxichkaya geograjya SSSR, Leningrad, MOSCOW TIKHOasIIlOV, YE. I. 1930 On the temperature of Oymekon, MefeotolosiyO i
- 1938 GeophJreical studiea in the Soviet Arctic, Proidmy
VIZE, v. Yu.
- 1940 Klimat morey scvet8kog arktiki. Bfoscuw. Leningrad
Qidrologiya, MOSCOW, Leningrad, No. 2, p. 79
R r M , Leningrsd, No. 3, p. 43 Ckimata of Yakutiys. in VXTTENBUELQ, P. V., ed. Yakutiya. Sbomik Stdey, Leningrad, p. 241
1927
368
