How Hot Is Death Valley

EATH VALLEY, California, is known generally as the hottest place in North America at which temperatures are recorded officially. OnJuly IO, I9I3, the extreme temperature of I340 F. was recorded there.' Little is known, however, of the conditions that prevailed at the time this record was established or, more important, of the probability that it will be equaled or broken. On how many other times has the temperature in Death Valley exceeded I300 F. or I250 F.? Death Valley is a faulted valley in the northern part of the Mojave Desert of southeastern California about 200 miles northeast of Los Angeles. It is I40 miles long from north to south but only 6 to I5 miles wide. On the west the Panamints rise to 6ooo -i i,ooo feet; on the east are the Grapevine, Funeral, and Black Mountains, 4000 to 8ooo feet; lower mountains close the ends.2 A transverse range of low hills divides Death Valley into two basins. In the southern basin are the salt beds, the lowest point of which-and the lowest point in North America-is 280 feet below sea level. The best water source in the valley is Furnace Creek, which issues (at a temperature of 700 F. the year round) from springs in the Funeral Mountains, near the middle of the valley. A ranch was started in I870 at the mouth of Furnace Canyon; later, renamed Greenland Ranch, it became the headquarters of the Pacific Coast Borax Company. OBSERVATIONS

Geography · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · History · Species Distribution and Climate Change · Water Quality and Resources Studies

• Socio-ecological colonial transfers

  Open Access•R Biasillo•Modern Italy•2021

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