China’s North Pole – where record low temperatures plunge to -53C

Beiji Village in Mohe, China’s northernmost city [image credit : china.org.cn]

The reporter here says it’s ‘so cold it feels uncomfortable in your lungs’ then goes on to speculate on possible/imagined links to global warming aka climate change. ‘Research suggests’…etc. The freezing cold air coming south from Siberia gets billed as an ‘extreme weather event’.
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Mohe is known as China’s North Pole for a good reason, says Sky News.

It is the country’s most northern city and is a very, very cold place.

It’s difficult to describe what temperatures this low feel like.

On Sunday it hit -53C, a new low for the coldest temperature recorded in the country since modern monitoring began.

The National Meteorological Centre confirmed the previous record of -52.3C, set in 1969, had been beaten.

It’s so cold that the air catches in your throat, it feels uncomfortable in your lungs and you almost feel like you need to cough it out.

There is a strange freezing sensation around any part of your body where moisture lingers.
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Mohe is located on the top tip of a slimmer section of China that protrudes right up into Russia – it’s surrounded by Russia from the north, east and west and is often exposed to harsh air travelling south from Siberia.

It’s around 1,500 miles north of Beijing, which is already considered pretty far north.

It’s a picturesque, snow-covered place, home to about 85,000 residents who work in industries from farming to tourism.

Some homes are modern and well-equipped, but others are old-fashioned, heated with small coal burners.

Local heating companies in Mohe have said the boilers are running at full power to help people through the winter and Beijing News reported that coal consumption has increased by a third in the city.

While extreme temperatures are not unusual here, they are around 15C to 20C lower than the average. It raises now-familiar questions about the increased frequency of extreme weather events and what’s causing it.

Full article here.