Ground temperatures in Siberia reach extremes of 48°C, air temperatures reach 30°C

Newly published satellite imagery shows the ground temperature in at least one location in Siberia topped 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) going into the year’s longest day. It’s hot Siberia Earth summer, and it certainly won’t be the last.

While many heads swiveled to the American West as cities like Phoenix and Salt Lake City suffered shockingly hot temperatures this past week, a similar climatological aberrance unfolded on the opposite side of the world in the Arctic Circle. That’s not bizarre when you consider that the planet heating up is a global affair, one that isn’t picky about its targets. We’re all the target!

The 118-degree-Fahrenheit temperature was measured on the ground in Verkhojansk, in Yakutia, Eastern Siberia, by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel satellites. Other ground temperatures in the region included 109 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) in Govorovo and 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) in Saskylah, which had its highest temperatures since 1936. It’s important to note that the temperatures being discussed here are land surface temperatures, not air temperatures. The air temperature in Verkhojansk was 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius)—still anomalously hot, but not Arizona hot.

There's also this article from over a year ago describing basically the same experience:

The record heat in parts of Siberia during the month of May was so remarkable that it reached five standard deviations from normal. In other words, if hypothetically you were able to live in that area for 100,000 years, statistically speaking you should only experience such an extreme period of temperatures one time. Climate change has now increased that chance.

There may be an additional impact from climate change. Dr. Michael Mann is arguably one of the world's most respected climate scientists. In 2018 he published a study about a summer phenomenon he calls quasi-resonant amplification (QRA) in which atmospheric waves and jet streams tend to slow down or even get stuck, leading to a blocked pattern. This effect is most pronounced with more warming.

Mann told CBS News that while there is no evidence available yet for this specific event, "It is consistent with the overall phenomenon of more persistent extremes as a result of a slower, more meandering jet stream."

Experts have frequently described that imbalance by saying that the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the global average. But that is no longer accurate. Just days ago, Gavin Schmidt, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, corrected the reference by providing evidence that the rate of Arctic warming is actually three times faster.