It may be freezing in the Alps at the moment as an anti-cyclone brings clear nights but that is nothing compared to freshly analysed data from NASA for August 2010 where a record breaking -94.7C was set. It was almost as cold on the 31st of July of this year when temperatures plunged to -92.9C. The figures were set in East Antarctica.
This has beaten the old record of -89.2C. The readings were announced by National Snow and Ice Data Centre scientist Ted Scambos at the American Geophysical Union scientific meeting in San Francisco on Monday. Scambos said the temperatures were more like Mars on a summer's day. However the figures were not recorded on the ground so are not official. You can survive at that sort of temperature only by breathing air that has been warmed inside your coat via a snorkel.