The icebergs have been cracking in Antarctica, as temperatures have reached a record of 69.3 degrees Fahrenheit or 20.75 degrees Celsius. Scientists monitoring the continent in the northern area, called Seymour Island, reported the measurement, according to Fox News.
Feb. 9 was a notable day in history, as temps in what is arguably the coldest place on earth hit nearly 70 degrees. According to The Washington Post, a recent study taken earlier in the month stated reports of 65 degree temperatures in Seymour Island.
A temperature this high has never been recorded.
“We are seeing the warming trend in many of the sites we are monitoring, but we have never seen anything like this,” said Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer to the Guardian.
The numbers are still being clarified to see if they are the highest ever recorded, according to The Washington Post. However, many questions are still unanswered because scientists are looking into the types of tools used to conduct the study, when it was done and how long it lasted.
Scientists have said that the average temperatures seen by the Seymour Island research station around this time of year typically reach 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit, according to The Washington Post. With temperatures rising and an increasing number of glaciers melting at a faster pace every year, the Antarctic Peninsula has lost 25 billion metric tons of ice per year from 1992-1997.
Scientists a part of the Brazilian Antarctic programme explained that everything is interrelated. There are climatic changes in the atmosphere caused by greenhouse gas emissions that impact both the ocean and the ice caps, according to The Guardian.
Temperatures have dipped periodically from the previous decade. The past ten years have been the hottest in the United Nations, looking to only rise. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the two hottest years recorded have taken place since 2016.
The year 2020 is on pace for breaking more records, as January was the hottest it’s ever been.
