Highest temperature recorded on Earth

The current official highest registered air temperature on Earth is 56.7 °C (134.1 °F), recorded on 10 July 1913 at Furnace Creek Ranch, in Death Valley in the United States.

This finding has since raised questions about the legitimacy of the 1913 record measured in Death Valley, with several meteorological experts asserting that there were similar irregularities.

[4] According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the highest registered air temperature on Earth was 56.7 °C (134.1 °F) in Furnace Creek Ranch, California, located in Death Valley in the United States, on 10 July 1913.

Ninety years later, this record was decertified, making the former reading in Death Valley the world's highest official temperature again.

[13] The theoretical maximum possible ground surface temperature has been estimated to be between 90 and 100 °C (194 and 212 °F) for dry, darkish soils of low thermal conductivity.

This record was decertified by the WMO in January 2012 after investigation concluded that an inexperienced observer probably misread a new instrument that they had not been trained to interpret.

"[1][17] Modern weather historians such as Christopher C. Burt and William Taylor Reid have also claimed that the 1913 Death Valley reading is "a myth", and is at least 2.2 to 2.8 °C (4 to 5 °F) too high.

[20] All of the recordings listed before 1972 were allegedly caused by a sudden localized increase in air temperature near the surface, known as a heat burst.