On Thursday the United Nations acknowledged a new record high temperature for the Antarctic continent, verifying a reading of 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 degrees) made in the year 2020.
Maximum Temperature Record
The UN's World Meteorological Organization said on the 6th of February 2020, the record heat was attained at Argentina's Esperanza research station on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Petteri Taalas, WMO secretary-general said confirmation of this highest temperature record is crucial. This is because it serves as an assistant to build up a picture of the weather and climate in one of the final frontiers on Earth. He also said the Antarctic Peninsula is also a fastest-warming region of the planet - close to 3 °C over the last 50 years.
Adding that this new temperature record is therefore constant with the climate change that is been observed.
The World Meteorological Organization did not recognize an even higher temperature reading of 69.4 °F (20.75 °C), reported on the 9th of February 2020 at a Brazilian automated permafrost monitoring station on the neighboring Seymour Island, off the peninsula which extends north in the direction South America.
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Previous Confirmed Record For the Antarctic Continent
The former confirmed record for the Antarctic continent - the mainland and its nearby islands - was about 63.5 °F (17.5 °C) recorded on March 24 last year at Esperanza. The record for the larger Antarctic region - every place south of 60 degrees latitude - is 67.6 °F (19.8 °C), collected on the 30th of January 1982 on Signy Island.
While going through the two reported new temperature records, a WMO committee evaluated the situation of the weather on the peninsula during that time. It discovered that a large high-pressure system made downslope winds generating remarkable local surface warming.
The WMO said previous examinations have disclosed that kind of conditions are helpful for producing record temperatures. Scientists observed the instrumental arrangements and the data, and no concerns were found at Esperanza.
Earth's Lowest Temperature Ever Recorded
In the Brazilian station on Seymour Island, an improvised radiation shield there prompted a demonstrable thermal bias mistake for the air temperature sensor of the permafrost monitor, making its reading unqualified to be signed off as a formal WMO weather observation.
The new record at Esperanza will be included in the World Meteorological Organization's archive of weather and climate extremes. The archive comprises the heaviest hailstone, the highest and lowest temperatures in the world, heaviest rainfall, longest dry period, longest lightning flash, greatest gust of wind, and deaths that are weather-related.
Earth's lowest temperature ever recorded was minus 128.6 °F (minus 89.2 °C) recorded on the 21st of July 1983 at Vostok station in Antarctica. Antarctica's average annual temperature ranges from about minus 10 °C (14 °F) on the coast to minus 60 °C (minus 76 °F) at the highest parts of the interior.
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