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Sao Paulo: Scientists in Antarctica have recorded a new record temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius, breaking the barrier of 20 degrees for the first time on the continent, a researcher said Thursday.
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“We’d never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica,” Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.
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He cautioned that the reading, taken at a monitoring station on an island off the continent’s northern tip on February 9, “has no meaning in terms of a climate-change trend,” because it is a one-off temperature and not part of a long-term data set.
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But news that the icy continent is now recording temperatures in the relatively balmy 20s is likely to further fuel fears about the warming of the planet.
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The reading was taken at Seymour Island, part of a chain off the peninsula that curves out from the northern tip of Antarctica.
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The island is home to Argentina’s Marambio research base.
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Schaefer, a soil scientist, said the reading was taken as part of a 20-year-old research project on the impact of climate change on the region’s permafrost.
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The previous high was in the 19s, he said.
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“We can’t use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It’s a data point,” he said.
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“It’s simply a signal that something different is happening in that area.”
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Still, he added, a temperature that high had never been registered in Antarctica.
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Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Antarctica is helping drive sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations.
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The news came a week after Argentina’s National Meteorological Service recorded the hottest day on record for Argentine Antarctica: 18.3 degrees Celsius at midday at the Esperanza base, located near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.
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The previous record stood at 17.5 degrees on March 24, 2015, it said. It has been recording Antarctic temperatures since 1961.
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The past decade has been the hottest on record, the United Nations said last month, with 2019 the second-hottest year ever, after 2016.
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And 2020 looks set to continue the trend: last month was the hottest January on record.
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The Morning and Evening Brief###
The Morning and Evening Brief
