By Olivia Rosane | EcoWatch
The Antarctic region just recorded a temperature higher than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time.
Brazilian scientists measured a temperature of 20.75 degrees Celsius (approximately 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit) on Seymour Island Feb. 9, one of the researchers told AFP Thursday.
“We’d never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica,” Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP.
The record was broken three days after the Antarctic continent recorded its highest temperature to date at a balmy 18.3 degrees Celsius (approximately 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit). That measure was taken at Argentina’s Esperanza station on the Antarctic peninsula that extends north towards South America.
The Brazilian reading was taken on one of the islands that extends off that peninsula, according to BBC News. It breaks the previous record for the entire Antarctic region, defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) as all the land and ice south of 60 degrees. The previous record for the region of 19.8 degrees Celsius (approximately 67.6 degrees Fahrenheit) was recorded in 1982 on Signy Island.
Schaefer was careful to point out that the temperature reading was not part of a larger study and so could not be used as evidence of a climate trend.
“We can’t use this to anticipate climatic changes in the future. It’s a data point,” he told AFP. “It’s simply a signal that something different is happening in that area.”
