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Comment by jandrese | Hacker News Reader

Death Valley: The hottest place on Earth where people can survive long enough to keep a temperature station manned.

I am confused how 66.8C can be "the highest recorded temperature taken by a satellite", while the Aqua satellite found a maximum temperature of 80.8C.

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Imagine I was measuring the temperature in your home. I measured above your grill. Is that a good average for your home temperature?

I once set my oven to 350F, does that mean my house holds the record?

Not even close. What do you reckon the highest temperature was achieved in a house?

Forest fires have burnt houses. That's visible from space too.

I heard the tungsten filament in old-fashioned light bulbs can reach 2800K.

And LEDs can now reach 5000K :)

A tungsten filament can reach 4500 degrees Fahrenheit

That's colour temperature, not actual temperature.

https://www.hisour.com/correlated-color-temperature-24475/

Did you measure it from a satellite?

It doesn't say highest average measurement, it says highest recorded temperature. Plus, there is a 70.7 average measurement listed as well.

You're right, it doesn't need to be an average. Meteorologists are interested in outdoor air temperature in the shade, away from local disturbances like buildings and the ground. That way it's not influenced by uninteresting local effects like the color of the walls, direct solar heating (affected by the properties of the thermometer itself) or somebody turning the oven on.

That 70.7 degrees from the satellite was ground temperature, not air temperature, so it can't be compared.

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