Oymyakon highlands
The highlands of Oymyakon are highlands in north-east Siberia ( Russia , Asia ).
geography
The highlands of Oymyakon are located on the eastern border of Sakha (Yakutia), about 600 to 700 km northeast of the city of Yakutsk near Oymyakon , the place where the “ cold pole of all inhabited areas on earth ” (see below) is.
The highlands mainly consist of a high mountain range , which is located between the elongated Verkhoyansk Mountains or its southern foothills, Suntar Chajata , which rises up to 2959 m in the west, and the Tscherski Mountains (up to 3003 m ) in the east, and to which there are numerous mountains and in a north-westerly direction Connect mountain ranges . The mountain range forms the link between the two high mountains and the eastern border of Sacha.
The highlands are traversed by the Indigirka . About 150 km west of this highland is the highest mountain in the Verkhoyansk Mountains - the Mus Khaya .
Temperatures
overview
Although the highlands of Oymyakon are about 2,900 to 3,000 km from the geographic North Pole , they have the lowest temperatures of all inhabited areas on earth. This is due to the U-shaped opening of the highlands to the northwest , which lies between the two high mountains mentioned above and which is closed to the south by their connecting mountain range. Favored by arctic air currents flowing into the area from the north-west, a cold-air lake develops in the south-eastern valleys of the highlands , in which extremely low temperatures develop in the dry air. This icy situation is also favored by the very long distance to the coast of the Atlantic , because in the northern hemisphere the weather conditions are mainly determined by the west wind drift , so that humid and warm weather can hardly arise here; the nearby Pacific usually has little influence on the continental climate there .
Cold pole of all inhabited areas on earth
In the highlands of Oymyakon is presumably the " cold pole of all inhabited areas on earth", at which the lowest temperature ever recorded in these areas was determined; the lowest are usually reached in January and February:
- 6 February 1933: -67.8 ° C ( weather station of Oymyakon (same value as in Verkhoyansk , where measured on 5 and 7 February 1892))
- Winter 1938: −77.8 ° C (Oymyakon weather station), value is not recognized by the WMO .
Even lower temperatures than in the highlands of Oimjakon have so far only been measured on Earth at the South Pole and in East Antarctica , which is completely covered by glaciers and , apart from researchers, is completely uninhabited, at the Russian research station Vostok (for information on these temperatures, see there).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c “The coldest places - Oimjakon u. a. " ; in Diercke: The records of the earth - From the highest ditch to the deepest mountain , Ed .: dtv / Westermann, October 1981; see also table The lowest temperatures on earth ( after Blüthgen and Weischet, 1980 )
- ^ World Meteorological Organization Global Weather & Climate Extremes