Vostok Research Station measures the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth - July 21st, 1983

On this day in 1983, at Russia’s Vostok research station in Antarctica, scientists reported the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio, Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that charts the highs and lows of history
one day at a time. I'm Gay Blusier, and today

(00:21):
we're trying to beat the summer heat by talking about
the coldest day on record in Antarctica or anywhere else.
The day was July one. At Russia's voss Stock Research

(00:43):
station in Antarctica, scientists reported the coldest temperature ever recorded
on Earth. For those of us in the northern hemisphere,
July is a summer month, but in the southern half
of the world it falls in the middle of winter
and an inland Antarctica that means some of the most
bone chilling weather imaginable. But even by its own sub

(01:05):
zero standards, that July day in three was an exceptionally
cold one. When the researchers at Vostok braved the elements
that morning, their thermometers read minus one hundred and twenty
eight point six degrees fahrenheit or minus eighty nine point
two degrees celsius. Not only was that fifty four degrees

(01:28):
colder than the winter average for the region, it was
also an all time low for the entire planet. It
beat the previous world record low, which was also taken
at Vostok, by more than two full degrees. For reference,
the coldest temperature ever recorded in the US is negative
eighty degrees fahrenheit or negative sixty two degrees celsius, and

(01:51):
that was taken in Alaska near the Arctic Circle. Vostok
Station was founded by the Soviet Union in nineteen fifty seven.
It's located high top and icy dome in the middle
of the East Antarctic ice sheet that places the station
extremely far south, only about eight hundred miles from the

(02:11):
geographic South Pole. The Soviets chose that location largely for
the purposes of deep core ice drilling, as well as
for studies of Earth's magnetosphere. Despite the hardships of living
in such a remote area, the station was and still
is operated all year round. One of the many challenges

(02:32):
of manning the station in the dead of winter is
that the sun ceases to rise from mid May to
early August. That stretch of continuous night is tough on
station personnel not only because of the increased sense of isolation,
but because it also results in some of the coldest
temperatures of the year, and that's especially true at higher elevations,

(02:54):
such as Vostok's eleven thousand foot high perch near the
top of an ice dome. That said, a lack of
sunlight and a high elevation aren't enough to explain the
extreme cold reported at Vostok in July of three. Otherwise,
equally low temperatures would occur there every year, which doesn't

(03:14):
seem to be the case. The special conditions that created
such a steep drop in temperature were later determined to
be clear, cloudless skies and unseasonably calm air. Typically, warmer
air flows across the Southern Ocean and onto the Antarctic
plateau where Vostok sits, but during the week of July one,

(03:36):
no such winds were blowing that year. As a result,
the cold air circulating Vostok had no warmer air to
mix with, and that created the perfect conditions for a
temperature drop. The researchers at Vostok were well aware of
this cooling, and on July twenty one three they decided

(03:56):
to duck outside the station and take a reading for themselves.
As simple a task as that may sound, a good
deal of care still had to be taken. For example,
the Russian scientists had to don special masks that featured
a kind of snorkel device that could be run through
the sleeve of a coat. This was because humans canned inhale,

(04:16):
cold Antarctic air for more than a few breaths. Any
longer and our lungs start to hemorrhage. The masks the
scientists wore helped prevent that by warming up the incoming
air before they breathed it in. The temperature they registered
that day is the lowest recorded in the world since
humans started keeping track back in nineteen twelve. Granted, that's

(04:40):
less than a hundred years of data to pull from
at the time of recording, so it's pretty likely that
a colder temperature occurred somewhere on Earth before the Technically,
there's even evidence of a lower temperature after the one
at Vostok was measured. For instance, NASA satellites have used
remote sensing to measure lower surface temperatures at least a

(05:01):
few times already. As of two the lowest temperature reading
was taken in on the same plateau as Vostok. It
was minus one hundred and forty four degrees fahrenheit more
than fifteen degrees lower than the record. But before you
complain that I've dedicated an entire episode to a woefully

(05:24):
outdated record, consider this. Temperatures measured by remote sensing aren't
considered official records. The International Committee that verifies weather extremes
only considers measurements made using standard methods and equipment, and
that doesn't include satellites. That means the Vostok record still

(05:44):
stands as the official coldest temperature on Earth. That technicality
is fine by me, because in the end, who deserves
the record more some snooty satellite all snug and safe
up in orbit, or a boots on the ground scientist
with a snork all up their sleep. I think we
all know the answer. I'm Gay Bluesier, and hopefully you

(06:07):
now know a little more about weather history today than
you did yesterday. If you have a second and you're
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send any feedback you might have directly to me by

(06:29):
writing to This Day at I heart media dot com.
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank
you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow
for another day in history class.