Los Angeles: California's Death Valley has been recognised as world's hottest place after meteorologists disqualified a Libyan city's 90-year old record citing "error in recording the temperature".
A World Meteorological Organization panel conducted an in-depth investigation during 2010-11 of the long-held world-record temperature extreme of 58°C (136.4°F)
by El Azizia, approximately 40 kilometres south-southwest of Tripoli, on September 13, 1922.
The Death Valley temperature record stands at 56.7°C (134°F) taken on July 10, 1913 -- 99 years ago.
The WMO evaluation committee included experts from Libya, the United States, Egypt and other countries, according to a WMO press release.
It concluded that the most compelling scenario for the 1922 event was that a "new and inexperienced observer", could "easily misread, improperly record the observation and was consequently in error by about seven degrees Celsius".
Based on these findings, the WMO Commission of Climatology World Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes has invalidated the 58°C temperature extreme measured at El Azizia in 1922, the release said.
PTI
First Published: Friday, September 14, 2012, 20:46