The Death Valley Temperature Record is Being Fought Over!

Above: Observer Oscar Denton at the Greenland Ranch weather station around 1920. Image from Popular Science Monthly.

This entry is a bit different than most here on Stormbruiser. I am going to comment on a fairly current news article, from July, 2023. It was around then that reporter Amy Graff of online news web site “SFGATE.COM” contacted me to chat about my research on the Death Valley record temperature of 134F in 1913. Of course, my research into the record shows that the 134F report is bogus, and I explained to the reporter why that was the case. Graff contacted several other “experts” on the subject matter to get their take. There are climatologists who think that the 134F is not authentic, and others who think that the record should stand.

I thought that Graff’s article was very good. And I think that some parts could benefit with additional input by me! This web entry will serve to help bring you up to speed on where the “134” sits currently, in late November, 2023.

Interest in the official high temperature record for the country and the world tends to increase a lot during the summer when Death Valley maximums start exceeding 125F. A high-end heat wave was forecast for Death Valley during July, 2023, so attention again turned to its all-time maximum of 134F (set at Greenland Ranch/Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913). What is kind of nice is that my research is getting more attention, and if it comes in part because the media like to showcase a good old-fashion climatological disagreement, then so be it! By the way, Death Valley failed to reach 130F in July, 2023.

I was impressed with the questions that Graff asked regarding the old Greenland Ranch record. She asked me how to find original records from July 1913 at Las Vegas and Lone Pine, since my primary argument against the 134F record is that surrounding stations were not hot enough to support the Death Valley maximum temperature reports. She asked how I first connected with Chris Burt, a climatologist from the Bay Area. (Chris helped me write an article for his blog on WeatherUnderground which has brought a lot more attention to the record. Here is the original WU version transferred to my web site, with the graphics.) Here is my reply to Amy in an e-mail:

Bill Reid: We (Chris Burt and I) both attended the special “celebration” of the 100-year anniversary of the 134f observation at the NPS Visitors Center in DV on July 10, 2013.  We chatted about the record after I saw him getting interviewed by a reporter there.  I told him my theory about why the max temps in July 1913 were so high and so out of whack.  At that time it was still a mystery to climatologists as to how and why the max temps were so unusually hot.  When I told him that the observer had likely inflated the numbers artificially because he thought they were too low, he seemed to concur.  Thereafter he read the long accounts on my web site and then asked me to write the WeatherUnderground article on the matter.

(Note: I think it is was while I was driving to this event in Death Valley that it first came to me that the dubious maximums of July, 1913, at Greenland Ranch could have been, or probably were, inappropriately and intentionally “bumped up” by the observer. I had been mulling over the 134F record and the other excessive Death Valley maximums for more than 25 years, since I completed my Masters Thesis. Why were the maximums so high? Could it really be that the observer did something that he should not have done in order to boost the maximums? My mind was spinning on that drive!)

In a follow-up e-mail, Graff requested more information. From Graff:

Graff: I want to double check one point you shared with me.

In the first two summers of Denton as weather observer in Death
Valley, the max summer temps he recorded were 122 and 120?

Also, if you can, please share in a couple sentences a few examples,
or a brief summary ,that tells why Denton’s records during his eight
years as observer were erratic and show he may not have followed
proper procedure. I’ve looked through your blogs but a very, very
brief summary in your words that I can quote from would be great.

And my e-mail response is as follows:

Okay, I let you know that Denton’s first month as observer was probably October, 1912.  He was not making any weather observations during the first two summers at Greenland Ranch as far as I can tell.

Here is a blurb as to the problems associated with Denton’s stint as weather observer at Greenland Ranch from about October 1912 to 1921:

For nearly all of the months from 1912 to 1915 with Denton as observer there are instances when the day’s maximum temperature is lower than the temperature at the time of observation (which is usually around 5 p.m.).  Since the daily max and min temperatures are 24-hour values, such daily maximums are not possible. This suggests that Denton was resetting the maximum thermometer more than once per day, which is not standard procedure.

In the warm months leading up to July, 1913, there are a handful of instances in which the daily maximum temperature at Greenland Ranch appears too warm, by 5 to 10 degrees perhaps, compared to the maximums at the closest surrounding stations.  Such anomalous maximums culminated during the very hot stretch during the first half of July, 1913.  The maximums during the summers of 1911 and 1912 did not exhibit such anomalies.

The minimum temperatures at Greenland Ranch during the late falls and winters of 1913-14 and 1914-15 with Denton as observer were much, much too warm.  This caused average daily temperature ranges to be much too small and very un-Death Valley-like.  This was probably due to a broken minimum thermometer, which was rectified early in 1915.  The minimum daily temperature data during these two winters is simply bunk.

Careful inspection of the daily temperature data provided by Denton strongly suggests that many entries were estimated.  Presumably, it appears that Denton would “fill in the blanks” during periods when he was not available to do the observations.  These periods are easy to detect as Denton typically used values ending in a “0” or a “5”, and the temperatures tend to deviate some from that which would be expected based on surrounding stations.  Some long stretches of a week or two might show very persistent temperatures which bear no resemblance to what was actually occurring in the region at the time.

Early photographs of the instrumentation at the ranch show it in two different places:  one right next to the alfalfa field, and one in the midst of the open desert.  This discrepancy has not been explained.  Early accounts of the station placement have it above a grassy patch next to the alfalfa field.  But it might be that Denton moved the instruments, at least temporarily, to a hotter spot that was not affected by the cooling influence of the irrigated field.

These problems with the temperature data during the Denton years strongly suggest that the observer failed to follow proper observing techniques.   It might be that Denton wasn’t sure what to do in certain circumstances.  It also might be because he was not adequately trained, and/or he did not adequately appreciate the need to adhere to the standard protocols that a weather observer is expected to adhere to.  As you know, my “hunch” is that he was not enamored with the relatively coolish maximums at the original instrument location along the alfalfa field.  So, he found ways to artificially and inappropriately increase the maximum temperatures in the summer of 1913.  He “cooked the books,” so to speak, by entering bogus maximum temperatures in July 1913 which he felt better represented actual conditions in Death Valley.

And I think that that should cover it — hope it isn’t too long, but there is a long litany of data problems from late 1912 to 1921 and plenty of bogus “records” in the Greenland Ranch climate record during that timeframe, unfortunately.

Okay, back to me now in normal blog-writing mode.

Let’s go over Amy’s article: “The fight over Death Valley’s 134-degree temperature record heats up.”

She includes plenty of links to help the reader look more deeply into the background. Check the SFGATE online version for those links. I am going to copy and paste the entire article in sections below. The article parts are in bold type. My comments are between the bold sections.

On July 10, 1913, Oscar Denton, a U.S. Weather Bureau observer stationed at Greenland Ranch, in Death Valley, California, claimed the mercury hit an astonishing 134 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever recorded in the United States. In 2012, Denton’s record was officially recognized as the world heat record by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization, the international arbiter of weather records. 

For years, though, a small group of weather-watchers have called the legitimacy of Denton’s claim into question, citing the observer’s inexperience and the much less dramatic temperatures recorded at nearby stations that day. Now, as the world warms, more experts are beginning to look critically at the record — including UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain, whose Twitter and YouTube coverage of California’s weather have made him a minor celebrity.

“There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical that this reading is valid,” including the quality of Denton’s records, Swain wrote in an email to SFGATE. Indeed, when recently referring to the Death Valley temperature record in his blog, he didn’t refer to the 1913 record. Instead, he uses 130 degrees as the benchmark. Swain considers this “the highest reliable reading, i.e., with no known data quality issues,” he said in an email.

Well, that is a good start! It looks like Dr. Daniel Swain has looked over my Death Valley record blog at least a little bit. I honestly am not too familiar with Swain. He studied at Stanford and UC Davis, and it looks like his specialties are climate change, high-end precipitation events, and climate change effects on precipitation patterns for California and the western United States. Here is the link to Swain’s article which refers to 130F as the hottest reliable temperature report from Death Valley.

In Graff’s article, a link is provided to a WMO web site article (of August 18, 2020) titled: “WMO will verify temperature of 54.4°C in California, USA.” Is it not a little odd that it was deemed necessary to go to the trouble to verify a temperature report that is four full degrees (F) lower than the all-time record for the station! (Well, if you lump Greenland Ranch (1911-1961) and Death Valley (1961-present) together it is four degrees lower.) The 130F maximums in 2020 and 2021 are the hottest for the “Death Valley” station since it opened in 1961. Also from this WMO article:

To verify a new temperature record, the committee of experts has to examine the observation, the equipment, the calibration and observation practices, its correspondence to surrounding stations, etc. 

It has been more than three years since the temperature of 130F occurred in August 2020. I don’t think an official verdict has been rendered as of late November, 2023. I wonder if they have looked at my write-up for August 2020?! And here is the link to the 130F event in July, 2021, if they need to verify that one, too. I think I have done at least half of their work for them on these two 130F events. If the committee is reading this and wants my opinion, I would say that the two 130F readings are valid, but know that the exposure and ventilation and instrumentation (radiation shield with no aspiration) issues at the current Death Valley weather station in Furnace Creek often promote maximums in summer that are a couple of degrees (F) higher than they probably should be. Here are those write-ups on station exposure. So the question is: Do we want to accept record high temperature measurements that are a little bit too high due to somewhat inadequate ventilation? Or do we want to lower the reported maximums of 130F a degree or two to better match what a better-ventilated station with an aspirated radiation shield likely would have yielded?

Also interesting in the above statement on the WMO site is that the 130F record will be compared to reports from surrounding stations. Hey, isn’t that exactly what I have done to show that 1913’s 134F is not authentic?

At the bottom of the WMO article is the following:

Historic records

According to the Weather and Climate Extremes archive, the hottest temperature ever recorded was in Furnace Creek, Death Valley, California at 56.7°C on 10 July 1913. The highest temperature for the Eastern hemisphere was set in July 1931 in Kebili, Tunisia, at 55.0°C.

Other high temperature records include 54.0 °C in Mitribah, Kuwait, on 21 July 2016 and a second in Turbat, Pakistan, on 28 May 2017.

Some weather historians have questioned the accuracy of old temperature records. The WMO Archive for Weather & Climate Extremes is always willing to investigate any past extreme record when new credible evidence is presented.

FYI, Chris Burt says that the 131F temperature in Tunisia has zero credibility.

It is nice that the WMO author here notes that some old records are disputed, and that this WMO team is willing to investigate old records. But, since the WMO has no intent at this time to investigate the Death Valley 134F record, the statement ending with “when new credible evidence is presented,” suggests that, in the official opinion of the WMO, the relatively recent Death Valley temperature research presented by Reid and Burt fails to provide the necessary credible evidence.

Here is a link to the WMO climate records page for official hottest temperature record for the planet. They are still hanging on to Death Valley’s 134F, of course. I find it odd that more is said here about why the old Libya record of 136F in 1922 was NOT valid than why the 134F in Death Valley in 1913 IS valid. (A screenshot of this page is below.) This WMO page lists Arnold Court’s 1949 article “How Hot Is Death Valley” as one of the references to substantiate the 134F report, presumably. You can find this article by Court on Part One of my research pages for the record (about halfway down the lengthy entry). Following is the entire statement by the WMO which, presumably, is intended to provide credence to the 134F temperature at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley in 1913:

After examining the temperature record in detail, Court noted that this temperature may be the result of a sandstorm that occurred at the time. Such a storm may have caused superheated surface materials to hit upon the temperature in the shelter.

That’s it.

That is all of the evidence provided by the WMO. The world’s official highest temperature on record is the 134F at Greenland Ranch, and it is an accepted and reliable temperature, according to the WMO web site, since climatologist Arnold Court studied the record in detail, and because he postulates that a sandstorm “may have caused superheated materials to hit upon the temperature in the shelter.”

This official statement (i.e., the discussion supporting the 134F temperature report from Death Valley) is rather ridiculous, in my opinion, and with all due respect to the WMO. Here’s why!

Court’s detailed research found that the 134F report was a full 7 degrees (F) higher than the highest temperature in the Greenland Ranch record from 1911 to that time, outside of 1913. Court cited Willson as having found nothing unusual on the weather maps to explain the unusually hot temperatures (five consecutive days had reported maximums of 129 to 134F at Greenland Ranch in July, 1913). And, Court quotes Willson (from Willson’s Monthly Weather Review article of 1915), saying the event “did not give record temperatures in any other portion of California.”  Court was searching for reasons why and how the unusually hot maximums came about, mentioning sun spots and solar activity, and the possibilities of a blackening of the thermometer shelter or a short-lived bubble in the maximum thermometer. But there is no evidence of any such equipment problems. Court states in “How Hot Is Death Valley” that “there is no indication that the readings as reported are not correct,” but the article conveys that the meteorological and climatological support for the 134F maximum temperature were absent, or at least not apparent. Court states “since no unusual temperatures were reported elsewhere, the occurrence of very high temperatures in Death Valley in this sunspot period must be classed as fortuitous.”

The nitty-gritty of Court’s investigation of the 134F report at Greenland Ranch in “How Hot Is Death Valley” is on this page provided below:

“How Hot Is Death Valley” by Arnold Court was (and still is) not a particularly supportive article for the 134F record! And, though Court’s article mentions that the borax superintendent said that it was “blowing very hard” on the day with 134F, nowhere in the article is “sandstorm” mentioned. The article does not include any mention of “superheated surface materials.” Court provided the superheated sand possibility in a different article.

The WMO statement reads:

Such a storm may have caused superheated surface materials to hit upon the temperature in the shelter.

I think they meant to say “hit upon the thermometer in the shelter.”

The WMO has chosen here to provide the “sandstorm” and “superheated surface materials” theory as advanced by Court, but Court was just offering possibilities which might explain some very anomalous historical data. There is no evidence that some hot surface material made its way into the thermometer shelter. Let’s say that Court was correct, and somehow hot sand was blown off of the ground and made its way into the shelter and hit the thermometer bulb and caused a reading of 134F. Does this sound like a scenario that climatologists would find acceptable to validate an official highest temperature reading for the entire planet?! If lava poured into a thermometer shelter in Hawaii and the thermometer read 160 degrees F or higher, would that reading be accepted as the authentic record high maximum ambient air temperature for the world?

Greenland Ranch had five consecutive days with reported maximums of 129F (twice), 130F, 131F and 134F. There were also a few days with 127 and 128F during the hot spell. The highest temperature at Greenland Ranch outside of 1913, for the other 49 summers from 1911 to 1960, was 127F. Did hot sand affect the thermometer on each of these other days in 1913 which were close to 130F, but never again? If the “hot sand” theory is correct, then why has such a phenomenon never been documented? Why has such a situation never been documented at any other desert weather station (including Greenland Ranch) in more than 100 years of temperature measurement in the United States? Of course, the answer is the “hot sand blown into the shelter due to a sandstorm” possibility offered by Court was just conjecture; if there was indeed a sandstorm around the station, it almost certainly was not the cause of the excessive maximums in July 1913.

The WMO’s mentioning of Court’s “superheated materials” theory does not help to promote confidence in the 134F record, in my opinion. Court does not even mention “superheated materials” in that article referenced by the WMO. Let’s provide a screenshot or two of the WMO’s page for posterity:

A summary of the irony and ridiculousness:

—the WMO thoroughly, and rightfully, investigated Libya’s (bogus) 136F maximum from 1922

—it lists the problems associated with the (invalidated) Libya temperature on its page for the world’s highest temperature, the Death Valley 134F record temperature (strange, is it not?)

—the problems with the Libya record are basically the same ones which invalidate the Death Valley 134F record (according to my research), but the WMO has found no reason to investigate Death Valley’s 134F record (yet)

—and the WMO’s lone statement as to why the Death Valley record should be considered authentic (in their “discussion” above) is because a noted climatologist examined the record and stated that a sandstorm may have caused superheated materials to impact the maximum thermometer.

The WMO page for Death Valley’s 134F temperature does not exude confidence in the record, does it?

I will wrap up this part with this: Dr. Arnold Court was my Climatology professor for several classes in college. He was my Masters Thesis advisor in the 1980s at CSU Northridge. Court stated to his Climatology students (including me!) that he did not think that the 134F record temperature at Greenland Ranch in 1913 was valid. He concluded such because 134F was an extreme outlier from a statistical standpoint, coupled with Willson’s finding that no other stations in California had record high temperatures. As the primary advisor for my Masters Thesis, Court agreed with my determination that the Greenland Ranch maximums during that second week of July in 1913 appeared to be about 7-9 degrees (F) too high.

Let’s continue with the article by Amy Graff:

The World Meteorological Organization has investigated and overturned long-held records before. Indeed, until 2012, the world heat record was officially held by a small town in Libya, where an observer in 1922 claimed the temperature hit 58 degrees Celsius, or about 136 degrees Fahrenheit. The WMO put Denton’s record back on top in 2012, after a painstaking investigation by experts from nine countries found the Libyan record unreliable, citing five main issues including “problematical instrumentation” and “a likely inexperienced observer.” 

From what I understand, the new observer in Libya likely recorded the temperature shown at the wrong (top) end of the indicator in the “sixes” type max-min thermometer in use at the station in El Azizia. This incorrect entry was about 7 degrees Celsius too high. Instead of 136F, the actual high temperature in that instance was closer to 123F. Of course, a maximum of 123F was much more inline with what other stations recorded that day. The meteorologist in Libya (who was associated with the investigating committee) said that he did not believe that the 136F report was authentic, even well before the investigation began. It is kind of sad that more than 50 years of my life were lived believing an invalid high-temperature record. But, there is a lesson here. Be skeptical!

Here is an interesting summary by Chris Burt on the investigation of the Libya record. And, here is the corresponding BAMS article. The committee, including Randy Cerveny, determined:

“Due to problems with instrumentation, siting, and observational procedures, the WMO has invalidated the 90-year-old record for the world’s highest temperature.”

The only real problem was that the new observer read the wrong end of the indicator and then wrote the bogus reading down on the form. My opinion, of course!

When Libya’s 136F report was junked in 2012, new attention was directed to the 134F at Greenland Ranch. This all occurred around the time that I was investigating the 134F report and sharing what I knew about it with you here on my web site.

The next two paragraphs in Graff’s article:

Swain admits that questions about the Death Valley record could be dismissed as trivia, immaterial to modern climate science. But record-setting weather gets a lot of attention, and has dire consequences, including destroying natural ecosystems, damaging communities and causing death.

“Given how much play this number gets in the popular press and broadly in society, I’d say that it’s now probably worth the WMO committee’s time to take a formal look at whether it’s truly plausible given what has come to light through informal investigations over the past decade,” Swain wrote.

It’s too bad that Swain just didn’t say “through William Reid’s informal investigations over the past decade.” Is someone else also doing a lot of informal investigative work on the early Greenland Ranch temperature record? Okay, a little plug for me there…

Yes, thank you Dr. Swain for saying that the current official highest temperature record for the world should be looked at formally! It seems like a no brainer, doesn’t it? If a good number of respected climatologists think that the 134F might have authenticity issues, then why not look into it? It is probably the one world climatological record that people are most familiar with, or that the world’s population is most interested in.

Continuing with Graff’s article:

With or without the 1913 record, Death Valley is widely considered the hottest place on Earth. The barren, sandy expanse spans 156 miles from north to south, in the driest part of California’s Mojave Desert. Mountains ring the valley, trapping heat that bakes the valley floor so hot it can cause third-degree burns on bare feet. In the summer, air temperatures frequently soar into the 120s, and hit 130 degrees once each in both 2020and 2021, the two scorching days Swain cites as the hottest “reliable reading” ever recorded at Death Valley. (The WMO said it is “currently verifying” the two readings.)

Yay, the WMO is verifying the 130F maximum in July 2021, too! But what about the 134F in 1913? Oh, yes, the sandstorm. The WMO will need to look into the 130F and 131F maximums in July, 1913, too, right?

In explanations for Death Valley’s intense summer heat, writers often say something to the effect that the tall adjacent mountains trap the hot air. I am not a fan of such an explanation. The main reasons for the really hot summer afternoons are the high sun, the mostly dry and barren landscape, typically cloudless skies, dry subsiding air and the very low elevation of the bottom of the basin. The physical conditions allow mid-afternoon lapse rates to be at or very near the dry adiabatic lapse rate from the surface to more than 14,000 feet above sea level. The lower troposphere above Death Valley is in “convection oven” mode on nearly every summer afternoon, as thermals rise and downdrafts descend. Such an unconditionally unstable and deep surface-based layer covers ALL of the adjacent basins and desert areas. The heat is not trapped. It is transferred upward. Rising thermals aid in warming other portions of the lower and middle troposphere. Plot high temperatures versus elevation for Death Valley and at stations in adjacent basins and adjacent desert areas and you will find that the Death Valley values plot right along the same line as the other stations. Death Valley is hottest of all because it is at the lowest elevation…not because the mountains trap the heat.

Now having said that, it may be that the high terrain that surrounds much of Death Valley helps some to better warm the mid-levels of the troposphere as compared to low-elevation areas that are in a region without much high terrain. (The surface-based “mixed layer” more-easily mixes to higher altitudes above higher terrain versus lower terrain.) This would increase the “potential temperature” for surface-based stations in the vicinity of the higher terrain, including the low basins. This may explain in part why Death Valley routinely has more summer maximums above 120F as compared to the near sea-level areas of the Colorado Desert (around Palm Spring to Blythe, Salton Sea, Imperial and Yuma).

“If you have ever opened the oven to check on your cookies and that blast of warm air you feel, it can feel like that in Death Valley,” said Ashley Nickerson, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Las Vegas office, which oversees the Death Valley weather station.

I can’t argue with Ashley!

The U.S. Weather Bureau (now called the National Weather Service) first began recording Death Valley temperatures in 1911, at the now-defunct Greenland Ranch. Denton was the caretaker and foreman at the ranch between 1912 and 1920, tending to a 40-acre plot of alfalfa and figs with the help of the local Panamint Indians. He was also tasked with running the Weather Bureau’s station, including taking daily temperature readings. 

On the day Denton logged the 134-degree record, he was still relatively new to the job. And according to California climatologist and storm chaser William T. Reid, who has taken a decadeslong deep dive into Denton’s logs, there’s evidence in the erratically kept records that Denton may have ignored standard procedures. 

Graff includes some very helpful links in this correct and concise analysis.

“The records he kept weren’t very good,” Reid told SFGATE. “He cooked the books.”

Yep.

Reid explained in an email, “In the warm months leading up to July, 1913, there are a handful of instances in which the daily maximum temperature at Greenland Ranch appears too warm, by 5 to 10 degrees perhaps, compared to the maximums at the closest surrounding stations.”

The anomalous maximums culminated in early July, Reid said, when Denton logged an improbable five consecutive readings of 129 or above the week he recorded the record-setting high, including 130 degrees on July 12 and 131 on July 13, as well as 134 degrees on July 10. 

In other words, the anomalous maximums are very suspect because they are not supported by the maximums at the closest surrounding stations.

Christopher Burt, an Oakland-based weather historian who has worked with Reid to analyze the data, has looked at the temperatures recorded at nearby locations on July 10, 1913. Based on historical correlations, Burt believes the temperature in Death Valley on July 10 likely could not have been higher than 125 degrees.

“It’s virtually impossible that Death Valley hit 134” that day, said Burt, who was part of the team that decertified the 1922 Libya record. “134 is way out there, it’s way offline.”

Glad to have Chris on my side!

Swain agrees. “The large-scale meteorological pattern and the overall heat of the air mass in the Southwest when the 1913 record purportedly occurred does not appear to be capable of generating such extreme temperatures in Death Valley short of a truly exceptional and highly localized event,” he wrote in an email.

That is essentially the crux of the argument against the 134F report right there. The air mass at the time was hot, but not hot enough to support maximums above 125 or 126F at Greenland Ranch. And, “truly exceptional and highly localized” events during such summer hot spells have yet to be documented at any desert stations. There is an upper limit as to just how hot the ambient air temperatures can get, and this is governed/controlled/determined by the temperature thousands of feet above the ground. At adequately-exposed desert weather stations, “highly localized” excessive summer heat events do not occur. If someone argues that the 134F event must have been due to a “truly exceptional and highly localized event,” then they also have to explain the other days that week in July 1913 which (purportedly) reached 127, 128, 129, 130, and 131F at Greenland Ranch.

And, it again appears that Dr. Swain has been reading my blog!

Burt has asked the WMO and the National Climate Extremes Committee to review the 1913 record. The international agency has certainly been known to dig deep when it wishes; the investigation into the Libyan record involved tracking down the original log book shortly before the country’s 2011 civil war, which briefly interrupted the inquiry. But Burt isn’t holding his breath over the Death Valley case. The investigations are extremely time- and labor-intensive, he knows, and no one has published a peer-reviewed article calling the record into question, which makes the criticism easier to dismiss.

Was there a peer-reviewed article which dismissed the Libya record before the committee investigated that record? Many climatologists had questioned the Libya record, but there had been no peer-reviewed article (as far as I know) which focused on the 136F and its authenticity.

And, yes, I need to throw together an article for a climate journal that would be peer-reviewed.

“??The participants aren’t fully compensated and so they don’t take on these investigations lightly,” said Burt, who is also the author of the 2007 book “Extreme Weather: A Guide and Record Book.” “They want to make sure it’s worth their time and effort.”

Good points by Chris…but shouldn’t there be 99 to 100 percent certainty that the most important temperature report in the history of world climatology is trustworthy? The 134F temperature has been questioned for at least 75 years.

Randall Cerveny, the WMO’s rapporteur on weather and climate extremes, agreed that the organization would need significantly more evidence of an error than the records of nearby climate stations registering less extreme temperatures on July 10, 1913.

The Libya record was deemed invalid due to observer error, as the 136F reading was not supported by the surrounding station data, etc. It is the same story and the same reasoning which discredits the Death Valley/Greenland Ranch 134F record (in my opinion, of course). Chris Burt was the one to “lead the charge” to get the WMO motivated to look into the Libya record. And now Burt’s thinking on the Death Valley record is dismissed. There doesn’t seem to be much difference between the two with regard to the problems: new and inexperienced observer, lack of correspondence with surrounding stations and the long-term record of the station. Why did Cerveny think that Burt was on to something back around 2010 for the Libya record, but now he thinks that Burt’s assessment for Death Valley is off base?

“That claim was at least partially debunked even back in 1949 by noted California state climatologist Arnold Court who postulated that perhaps a dust storm with downburst winds may have influenced that observation locally but not regionally,” Cerveny, who teaches geographical sciences at Arizona State University, wrote in an email. “The 1913 record stands until clear, new evidence is presented for re-examining it.”

Yes, Court postulated that a dust storm may be the reason for it. Very weak, Dr. Cerveny! How does such conjecture by Court partially debunk anything? There is no proof that such a strong summer windstorm or downburst in the region causes such local heat events. The “upper limit” temperature is achieved almost every afternoon in Death Valley. The only way to achieve an even hotter maximum temperature than the upper-limit temperature would be to tap air that is well above the deep-mixed layer. I have yet to see any evidence of such an occurrence.

It seems like Dr. Cerveny is not that interested in the veracity of the hottest temperature recorded in California, in the United States, in the world. He totally dismisses the same arguments and justifications which he and the committee incorporated to invalidate the Libya record. Why doesn’t the committee look into the Death Valley record, allowing each individual involved to express their level of confidence in the 134F observation? I have done all of the work already! The report can be published, and then all climatologists around the world can provide their input as to whether the 134F should stand or not.

Let me sneak in one more statement from Cerveny. This one (in italics below) is from July 2021 and The New York Times:

But Randall Cerveny, who leads the World Meteorological Organization’s efforts to research and verify global weather records, said in an email that the 1913 reading was still recognized as the “hottest temperature recorded for the United States and for the world.”

Dr. Cerveny, who teaches geographical sciences at Arizona State University and worked with Mr. Burt to debunk the 1922 Libya record, described the research on the 1913 Death Valley record by Mr. Burt and Mr. Reid as “conjectural, not new evidence.” He added that the U.S. Climate Extremes Index, a NOAA project, has also opted not to investigate it.

“We do not dismiss records without substantial evidence proving their inaccuracy,” he said.

It is a little ironic that Court’s “conjecture” regarding the sandstorm is that which gets the mention to support the 134F temperature on the WMO page for hottest world temperature! Burt and I showed that the hot maximums of 127 to 134F during that week in July, 1913, at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley were not possible meteorologically. None of the surrounding stations support the Greenland Ranch maximums on ANY of the days from about July 7 to July 15. How is this conjecture? Such an anomalous run of maximums has not occurred in the other 112 summers of record in Death Valley. The WMO says that the Libya record of 136F is not valid in large part because of “poor matching of the extreme to other nearby locations.” It sounds like Cerveny is okay with making such a comparison to discredit one high-temperature record, but not for the next-highest temperature record.

I would hazard to guess that Cerveny has not looked closely at my research here on Stormbruiser. He says that there is no new evidence, but he hasn’t explained any of the inconsistencies in the Death Valley record which should be explained.

Back to the Graff article now:

Skeptics of the Death Valley record are unlikely to find an ally at the National Weather Service; in response to questions about Denton’s record, a spokesperson told SFGATE, “134 degrees on July 10 in 1913 remains the world-record until the WMO states otherwise.”

This is a bit troublesome. I have approached the NWS in Las Vegas about the Death Valley record. They have not been receptive. The forecasters at NWS Las Vegas are the true experts on the regional meteorology and climatology. They would know if a temperature, or a series of temperatures, appears doubtful or not. Have the employees at this office been told not to question the 134F record? I don’t know, of course, but it kind of seems that way.

In my opinion, the best way to get the record overturned is for the forecasters at NWS Las Vegas to admit that the 134F report appears to be too high and may not be valid. That’s all they have to do, and then I suspect that the WMO would have to look into the record.

It seems like the NWS at Las Vegas wants nothing to do with the Death Valley record. They brush it off to the WMO. Why is this the case?! This is a U.S. Weather Bureau record at a U.S. Weather Bureau station. The Death Valley station is in the region that NWS Las Vegas is responsible for. Wouldn’t you think that the NWS office staff here would be interested in providing the most trustworthy data possible?

Cerveny states (in The NY Times article) that NOAA’s U.S. Climate Extremes Index project folks are not interested in looking into the Death Valley record. I suppose it is possible that, since the NWS is part of NOAA, that the NWS offices (including NWS Las Vegas) have been directed NOT to cast any doubt upon the 134F record. These are just my thoughts and speculations on the matter!

Even if the WMO ever did investigate, and overturn, Denton’s record, it wouldn’t necessarily be the end of Death Valley as the “hottest place on Earth.” Burt, at least, has little faith in the only official record that tops Death Valley’s well-documented 130 degree days: A measurement of 131 degrees, recorded on July 7, 1931, at a colonial weather station in Kebili, Tunisia.

As Burt told Yale’s climate blog in 2021, “the Kebili ‘record’ is even more bogus than even the [Libyan] record. … Kebili is a relatively cool spot in Tunisia (an oasis) and never since the 1930s ever again recorded a maximum temperature above 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Nowhere in Africa has any reliably observed temperature been measured above 126 degrees Fahrenheit.”

I wonder what happened at Kebili in 1931! And don’t forget the 131F at Greenland Ranch on July 13, 1913. That reading still is considered official by NOAA and the WMO, presumably. Of course, I think it is unreliable. All of the maximums for the first half of July 1913 at Greenland Ranch should be officially discarded.

That is the end of Graff’s informative article. As of November, 2023, there appears to be little interest in officially looking at the 134F record from Greenland Ranch by the National Weather Service and the World Meteorological Organization and the U.S. National Extremes Index people. But, there are those two relatively recent 130-degree F measurements that are being verified by the WMO. It has taken forever for the report on these to be issued. Could it be that something is happening “behind the scenes” which involves both the 130F maximums AND the suspect July 1913 maximums? Probably not.

It will just take one person in the right position with the right frame of mind to finally get an official investigation going. In the meantime, fight on!