Antarctica hits record temperature of over 20.75C

PanARMENIAN.Net - Antarctica has exceeded 20C for the first time, after researchers logged a temperature of 20.75C on an island off the coast of the continent, says the BBC.

Brazilian scientist Carlos Schaefer told AFP they had "never seen a temperature this high in Antarctica".

But he warned the temperature, logged on 9 February, was just one reading and not part of a long-term data set.

The continent also hit a record last week, with a temperature reading of 18.3C on the Antarctic Peninsula.

This latest reading was taken at a monitoring station on Seymour Island, part of a chain of islands off the same peninsula, at the northernmost point of the continent.

According to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), temperatures on the Antarctic continent have risen by almost 3C over the past 50 years, and that about 87% of the glaciers along its west coast have "retreated" in that time.