Antarctica is hotter today than it’s ever been

Friday, February 7, 2020 - 15:40 in Earth & Climate

Warmer temperatures can lead to melting and breaking of Antarctica's ice sheets. (Achim Baqué/)It’s getting downright steamy in Antarctica. This morning, an Argentinian research base located at the most northern tip of the continent recorded a temperature of 65 degrees Fahrenheit. For context, that’s around ten degrees higher than it is right now in New York City.This toasty temperature trumps Antarctica’s previous record of 63.5 degrees F, recorded in March 2015, and follows in the tracks of the hottest January ever recorded globally, which hit northeastern Europe the hardest.“The reading is impressive as it’s only five years since the previous record was set and this is almost one degree centigrade higher,” James Renwick, a climate scientist at Victoria University of Wellington, told The Guardian. “It’s a sign of the warming that has been happening there that’s much faster than the global average.”The Antarctic region is hard hit by global climate...

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