Talk:Lowest temperature recorded on Earth

Measured at Scottish station in Elgin in 2019 (today: february 2018)? Something went wrong here. And then the article mentiones Vostok again as the station that measured the lowest temperature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.115.133.173 (talk) 10:59, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

-90C means dry ice?

If the coldest natural temperature was -89.2, wouldn't that mean that the carbon dioxide in the air would change phase into a solid, thus turning into dry ice (which happens at -78C) ? Seems kinda weird to think of the CO2 just dropping out of the air as a solid and mixing with the antarctic snow naturally... -- All the best, Nickj (t) 08:01, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I had the exact same question and one person suggested that this wouldn't happen due to there not being enough CO2 present in the air, but i am not convinced that it doesn't happen. Certainly a block of dry ice would not evaporate in this temperature, right?--Jrm2007 (talk) 17:56, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• I've deleted the statement because it is misleading in a general-interest encyclopedia and requires expansive elaboration to avoid falsely leading readers to believe that CO₂ would precipitate out onto the snow as dry ice. As this website explains, the sublimation point of carbon dioxide, when the carbon dioxide partial pressure is at one atmosphere, is -78.5 °C. A partial pressure is the amount of pressure exerted by a given constituent of a mixed gas. If there is a trace amount of a gas, then it exerts a trace partial pressure.

Since the atmospheric partial pressure of CO₂ is less than one-twentieth of one percent of one standard atmosphere, no dry ice forms on surfaces any more than at any other higher temperature. The fact that Vostok Station is at an elevation of 10,787 feet makes the partial pressure even less.

Based upon the equilibrium graph shown on the above-linked website, the ambient temperature would have to drop below -145 °C (a 0.00027 atm partial pressure is well below the bottom of the graph and off-scale to the left too) to precipitate dry ice out of thin air; and I'm only making a semi-educated guess that “dry ice frost” would begin to form below that temperture. That “0.00027” partial pressure is about what you would see from a ~400 ppm CO₂ concentration at 10,787 feet.

It is, however, interesting to note that the atmosphere of Mars is about 96% CO₂ and has a pressure that 0.006 that of Earth’s. That would be a sublimation point of about -125 °C. The coldest known temperatures on Mars are known to be -153 °C at the poles. And guess what Mars experiences at its poles. Dry ice snow.

I first faced this question while working with a Ph.D. chemist as an R&D engineer at a fuel cell company 16 years ago. The chemist had a freezer that went down to -80 °C. Nope; no dry ice forms. Having this article state that “Both readings are lower than the sublimation point of carbon dioxide (dry ice)” is non-encyclopedic, extraneous information and has been deleted.

If someone wants to make any mention of this record temperature's relationship to the sublimation point of CO₂, it must be to explain that no dry ice forms and why that is the case. I wouldn't attempt it because the point is probably too tangential to make it worth the effort to explain the science of partial pressures and equilibrium points in phase diagrams. One legitimate way to *explain* the point without trying to educate a general-interest readership on a relatively advanced scientific concept would be as follows: Both temperatures are below where dry ice frost would form on surfaces and dry ice “snow” would fall were earth's atmosphere pure carbon dioxide (which is actually only 0.04%) and were Vostok Station at sea level (which it isn’t). Greg L (talk) 18:40, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Not coldest but lowest

There is no such 'thing' as coldest temperature, or for that matter fast speed etc. It certainly is low and high temperature. The temperature is an expression how warm or how cold something is, it cannot be cold or warm in it self.--Leonfv (talk) 16:45, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean. There may not be a highest temperature, but absolute zero IS the lowest temperature anything can be. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.230.58 (talk) 20:41, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

The article name is 'Coldest temperature [...]', which is semantically wrong because a temperature can not be cold, since it is a scalar unit, it can only be described quantitatively ('low', 'high', ...). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.133.90.10 (talk) 00:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I know this isn't directly related, but I just thought I should point this out. According to the New York Post, the Siberian town Oymyakon has achieved a lower temperature than minus 128 Fahrenheit. The New York Post claimed Oymyakon's coldest official temperature was minus 153 °F in 1933, and was rumored to have gotten down to minus 160.6 °F. I know the New York Post is not the most reliable source, but again; I just thought I should point this out. Here is the link to the article: https://nypost.com/2021/12/03/fears-children-could-freeze-to-death-in-worlds-coldest-town/ - John — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.166.164 (talk) 01:23, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Temperature of helium achieved in 1908

The sentence "In 1908 he managed to lower the temperature to less than one degree above absolute zero, to less than −269 °C (3 Kelvin)" does not makes sense. This is saying "helium was taken to less than 1K, to less than 3K." after reading the original paper by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, I do not believe Onnes ever cooled helium below 1K in 1908 (or even below 2.2K, as that is when helium becomes a superfluid, not discovered until 1937). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.230.58 (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated link?

The link given for the -127.2 temperature mentioned does not validate the data. Everywhere else on the web the lowest temperature recorded seems to be -89.2. Pickle i po (talk) 12:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)Pickle_i_po

Really Outdated

The temperatures explained in this article are really out of date. I cannot point to the lowest temperature recorded, but as a reference point, the log-periodic antennas in the Allen Telescope Array operate at about 45K. It is listed as such in the wiki article, and it is not an error, as the one time I visited the ATA, the engineer that was conducting the tour indicated the cooling mechanisms can get the antennas down to 4K. Apparently that is not sustainable for long periods of time, but they can do it. Wingtipvortex (talk) 01:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

melting point of carbon dioxide?

In the first paragraph that doesn't allow editing by lowly particular individuals such as myself, it says "This is lower than the melting point of carbon dioxide (dry ice).". This should be changed to the sublimation point of carbon dioxide.

75.175.24.214 (talk) 02:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. Gabriel Kielland (talk) 18:58, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

See above discussion on the “dry ice” topic. Greg L (talk) 18:43, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Negative Kelvin Temperatures

Wouldn't they be the lowest? Halfhat (talk) 20:28, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

True negative temperature in all degrees of freedom in atomic/molecular motions and excitations is by definition impossible, because that would imply negative kinetic energy, which would require either negative mass or imaginary velocity, both contra-physical. The "negative temperatures" produced in laboratories are a result of defining a "temperature" for only a particular subset of atomic/molecular motions and excitations and ignoring the rest. For instance, a laser medium is formally colder than zero towards its resonant wavelength, because shining light of that wavelength results in emission of more radiation than went in, thus leaving significantly less energy than its previous kinetic energy in those degrees of freedom. But, that was only possible because it was first pumped into a high energy state. Moreover, in other degrees of freedom, such as IR-range molecular vibration, nothing unusual is going on, and the laser medium is still a regular warm object. --vuo (talk) 06:55, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

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Undoing a change based on satellite measure of near-ground temps

A change was made on 30 June 2018 -- see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lowest_temperature_recorded_on_Earth&type=revision&diff=848222703&oldid=846902983 . This specifies a new record based on satellite measurements of near-air surface temperatures, as opposed to ground-based thermometers of surface temperature. The next paragraph notes that a similarly-taken measurement "may not be listed as the record lowest temperature as it was measured by remote sensing satellites and not by ground-based thermometers, unlike the 1983 record." Due to this statement, I've undone the above change. If folks think it should be re-added, then I believe it's also necessary to concurrently change the next paragraph so as not to contradict the new record's method. --Larry/Traveling_Man (talk) 20:23, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Suggestion to make new section(s)

In relation to Larry/Traveling_Man's discussion, I think a new section or sections should be added about lowest temperatures recorded on Earth that meet different criteria, and not necessarily at ground level. For example: 1) Lowest temperature recorded at sea level, 2) Lowest temperature recorded of soil, 3) Lowest temperature recorded in Earth's troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere, etc. --Firth m (talk) 00:50, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Are there reliable sources for these values? Johnjbarton (talk) 02:17, 2 May 2024 (UTC)