Antarctic island hits record temperature of 20.75C

13:29, 14.02.2020

Antarctica has exceeded 20C for the first time, after researchers logged a temperature of 20.75C on an island off the coast of the continent.

Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP they had “never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica”. But he warned the temperature, logged on 9 February, was just one reading and not part of a long-term data set, as reported by BBC.

The continent also hit a record last week, with a temperature reading of 18.3C on the Antarctic Peninsula. This latest reading was taken at a monitoring station on Seymour Island, part of a chain of islands off the same peninsula, at the northernmost point of the continent.

According to the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), temperatures on the Antarctic continent have risen by almost 3C over the past 50 years, and that about 87% of the glaciers along its west coast have “retreated” in that time.

Over the past 12 years the glaciers have shown an “accelerated retreat” due to global warming, it adds. Last month was also Antarctica’s warmest January on record.

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Antarctica

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