<P> According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the highest confirmed air temperature on Earth was 56.7 ° C (134.1 ° F) in Furnace Creek Ranch, California, located in the Death Valley desert in the United States, on July 10, 1913 . While measuring air temperature is standard, there are two other main ways that a temperature can be recorded . </P> <P> The standard measuring conditions for temperature are in the air, 1.5 meters above the ground, and shielded from direct sunlight . From 1922 until 2012, the WMO record for the highest official temperature on Earth was 57.8 ° C (136.0 ° F), registered on September 13, 1922 in' Aziziya, Libya . In January 2012, the WMO decertified the 1922 record, citing persuasive evidence that it was a faulty reading recorded in error by an inexperienced observer . Christopher C. Burt, the weather historian writing for Weather Underground who shepherded the Libya reading's 2012 disqualification, believes that the 1913 Death Valley reading is also "a myth", and is at least 4 to 5 ° F (2.2 to 2.8 ° C) too high . This same conclusion has also been reached by historians Dr. Arnold Court and William Taylor Reid . If the 1913 record were to be decertified, the current highest recorded temperature on Earth would be 54.0 ° C (129.2 ° F), recorded both in Death Valley on June 20, 2013, and in Mitribah, Kuwait on July 21, 2016 . Temperatures measured directly on the ground may exceed air temperatures by 30 to 50 ° C. The theoretical maximum possible ground surface temperature has been estimated to be between 90 and 100 ° C (between 194 and 212 ° F) for dry, darkish soils of low thermal conductivity . While there is no highest confirmed ground temperature, a reading of 93.9 ° C (201 ° F) was allegedly recorded in Furnace Creek Ranch on July 15, 1972 . </P>

What has the hottest temperature been on earth