Record temperature as Antarctica warms up

Scientists in Antarctica have ­recorded a record temperature of 20.75C, breaking the 20c barrier for the first time.

Things are heating up in Antarctica. Picture: AFP

Scientists in Antarctica have ­recorded a record temperature of 20.75C, breaking the barrier of 20C for the first time.

Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer cautioned that the reading, taken at a monitoring station on an island off the continent’s northern tip last Sunday, “has no meaning in terms of a climate-change trend” because it was a one-off temperature and not part of a long-term data set.

But news that the icy continent is recording temperatures in the relatively balmy 20s is likely to further fuel fears about the warming of the planet.

The reading was taken at ­Seymour Island, part of a chain off the peninsula that curves out from the northern tip of Antarctica. The island is home to Argentina’s ­Marambio research base.

Professor Schaefer, a soil scientist, said the reading was taken as part of a 20-year research project on the impact of climate change on the region’s permafrost. The previous high was in the 19Cs, he said.

“We can’t use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It’s a data point,” he said. “It’s simply a signal that something different is happening in that area.”

Still, he added, a temperature that high had never been registered in Antarctica.

Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Antarctica is helping drive sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations.

The news came a week after Argentina’s National Meteorological Service recorded the hottest day on record for Argentine Antarctica: 18.3C at the ­Esperanza base, near the tip of the peninsula.

The previous record stood at 17.5C on March 24, 2015, it said. It has been recording Antarctic temperatures since 1961.

The past decade has been the hottest on record, the UN said last month, with last year being the second-hottest year, after 2016. And 2020 looks set to continue the trend: last month was the hottest January on record.

AAP