The heat record on the Antarctic continent was broken on February 6, 2020 with a temperature of 18.3 degrees Celsius, the World Meteorological Organization confirmed on Thursday.
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The now approved record was recorded at the Argentine scientific station of Esperanza and it exceeds that recorded at the same place on the Antarctic Peninsula on March 24, 2015, when the thermometer had indicated 17.5 degrees, said the WMO.
The peninsula is part of the Antarctic mainland, which also includes surrounding islands.
The WMO has not approved an even higher temperature reading made on February 9 of last year at a Brazilian automatic station not far from Seymour Island with 20.75 degrees Celsius. For the Antarctic region, which includes everything south of 60 degrees latitude, the highest temperature on record was recorded on Signy Island at 19.8 degrees on January 30, 1982. "
Verification of these Maximum temperature measurements are important because it helps us to paint a picture of weather and climate on one of the last ultimate frontiers on Earth,
”said Petteri Taalas, WMO Secretary General. "
The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the regions of the planet which is warming the most rapidly - almost 3 degrees during the last fifty years
", he stressed, adding:"
this new temperature record is therefore consistent with the change. climate that we are observing
”.
Verification
The committee in charge of the homologation of this record studied the weather over the continent at the time of the measurement and observed a phenomenon of high pressures which contributed to the warming of the surface there and which is known to produce record temperatures.
The experts also examined the facilities where the measurements were made to ensure that everything was in order.
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If this was the case in Esperanza, it was not the same at the Brazilian automatic station where an improvised anti-radiation shield skewed the measurements, which therefore could not be validated by the WMO.
The new record measurement will be deposited in the official archives of the WMO which keep the extreme measurements in terms of weather and climate such as the highest and lowest temperatures, rainfall or hail, but also the longest period. drought, the fastest gust of wind or even the longest lightning.
The lowest temperature ever recorded on earth (-89.2 C) was on July 21, 1983 at the Vostok station in Antarctica.
Global warming
“
Much more than the Arctic, Antarctica is poorly covered in terms of weather and climate observations and forecasts, although both play an important role in climate change, oceans and sea level rise. of the sea
”, underlined the boss of the WMO.
Recent studies have shown that a 2 degree rise in temperature could push the ice that covers Greenland and western Antarctica to melt - enough frozen water to raise sea levels 13 meters - to a point of no return. “
This new record shows once again that climate change requires urgent action
,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO Senior Vice-President and Head of Argentina's Meteorological Service. "
It is essential to continue to strengthen observation, forecasting and warning systems to respond to the extreme phenomena which are occurring more and more often due to global warming,
" she warned.
