It’s the dead of winter in Antarctica, but for the past several weeks, the Antarctic Peninsula has been experiencing an unprecedented heatwave. Researchers are sounding the alarm after temperatures soared well above average earlier this month, smashing the previous winter heat record.
Temperatures at Argentina’s Esperanza base, situated in Hope Bay at the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, reached 59.7 degrees Fahrenheit (15.4 degrees Celsius) on June 6, scientists told The Guardian. That’s 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) higher than the previous record-high winter temperature logged at the base in 1998. According to France 24, two other Argentine research stations on the peninsula—Marambio and San Martin—also logged record-breaking temperatures between June 5 and 6. “This is absolutely crazy,” Raúl Cordero, a climate scientist and assistant professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, told The Guardian. Esperanza’s new temperature record is about 36 degrees F (20 degrees C) above normal for this time of year, he explained. “That is a huge anomaly.”
A brutal heatwave in a rapidly warming region Climate change is driving up temperatures around the world, but the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming places on Earth. In fact, it’s been warming five times faster than the global average. The peninsula has experienced more warming since 1950 than anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere, with an average temperature increase of almost 5.4 degrees F (3 degrees C).
