Seven years of satellite temperature data show that the Lut Desert in Iran is the hottest spot on Earth. The Lut Desert was hottest during 5 of the 7 years, and had the highest temperature overall: 70.7°C (159.3°F) in 2005.
The largest desert on Earth is Antarctica, which covers 14.2 million square kilometers (5.5 million square miles). It is also the coldest desert on Earth, even colder than the planet's other polar desert, the Arctic. Composed of mostly ice flats, Antarctica has reached temperatures as low as -89°C (-128.2°F).
Although some deserts are very hot, with daytime temperatures as high as 54°C (130°F), other deserts have cold winters or are cold year-round.
Cooling from poor insulation or evaporation (such as wet clothes drying on your skin) can inhibit your body's ability to regulate its temperature causing it to drop rapidly. This in turn slows down the chemical reactions that keep you alive until you plunge into a coma that could lead to death.
Deserts are extremely dry places with almost no humidity, so the heat can't be retained during the night. Not all deserts get cold during the night. The air in dry areas cools off when there are no clouds covering the area, when there is no wind or, naturally, when there is almost no moisture in the air.
Oymyakon is the coldest permanently-inhabited place on Earth and is found in the Arctic Circle's Northern Pole of Cold.
Lava is the hottest natural thing on Earth. It comes from the Earth's mantle or crust. The layer closer to the surface is mostly liquid, spiking to an astounding 12,000 degrees and occasionally seeping out to create lava flows.
Official world record remains 134°F at Furnace Creek in 1913In 2013, WMO officially decertified the official all-time hottest temperature in world history, a 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit (58.0°C) reading from Al Azizia, Libya, in 1923. (Burt was a member of the WMO team that made the determination.)
Dallol, EthiopiaExtremely remote and set in the far north of Ethiopia, Dallol is a tiny village known for setting records. It's the hottest year-round spot in the world, with the average annual high temperature coming in at a blistering 106.1 degrees F.
More than 300 people live year-round in Death Valley, one of the hottest places on Earth. With average daytime temperatures of nearly 120 degrees in August, Death Valley is one of the hottest regions in the world.
During summer heat waves, Lytton is often the hottest spot in Canada, despite being north of 50°N in latitude. Due to the dry summer air and a relatively low elevation of 230 m (750 ft), summer afternoon shade temperatures frequently reach 35 °C (95 °F) and occasionally top 40 °C (104 °F).
That's because temperatures in the Sahara can plummet once the sun sets, from an average high of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) during the day to an average low of 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 4 degrees Celsius) during the night, according to NASA.
The Sahara Desert is one of the driest and hottest regions of the world, with a mean temperature sometimes over 30 °C (86 °F) and the average high temperatures in summer are over 40 °C (104 °F) for months at a time, and can even soar to 47 °C (117 °F).
Death Valley is in the northern Mojave Desert and holds the highest recorded temperature of 56.7C. The coldest temperature recorded there is -10C on January 10, 1913. The Sahara annual average temperature is 30C but can regularly exceed 40C in the hottest months.
Annual rainfall in the Sahara now ranges from about 4 inches to less than 1 inch (100 to 35 mm). Although other research had already identified the existence of the Green Sahara period, Tierney and her colleagues are the first to compile a continuous record of the region's rainfall going 25,000 years into the past.
The animals include, for a few examples, Barbary sheep, oryx, anubis baboon, spotted hyena, dama gazelle, common jackal and sand fox; the birds--ostriches, secretary birds, Nubian bustards and various raptors; the reptiles--cobras, chameleons, skinks, various lizards and (where there is sufficient water) crocodiles;
That's because temperatures in the Sahara can plummet once the sun sets, from an average high of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) during the day to an average low of 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 4 degrees Celsius) during the night, according to NASA.
That's because temperatures in the Sahara can plummet once the sun sets, from an average high of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) during the day to an average low of 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 4 degrees Celsius) during the night, according to NASA.
The biggest factor behind Death Valley's extreme heat is its elevation. Parts of it are below sea level, even though the area is 250 miles (400 kilometers) inland from any major body of water. Also, a major set of mountains (the Sierra Nevada) block moisture from the Pacific from reaching the basin.
Based on how much temperatures fall with elevation, the lowest temperatures on top of the mountain may reach down to -36°F to -52°F (-33°C to -62°C). So the coldest it has ever gotten in the Sahara (if you consider parts of the atlas to be in the Sahara) is as much as -36 to -52°F (-33°C to -62°C).
The Sahara desert, which covers most of Northern Africa, has gone through shifts in temperature over the past few hundred thousand years - but snow and ice are still very rare. The town in the Naama province has experienced snow only three other times in 42 years - in 1979, 2017 and 2018.
The high position of the Sun, the extremely low relative humidity, and the lack of vegetation and rainfall make the Great Desert the hottest large region in the world, and the hottest place on Earth during summer in some spots.
