Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Antarctica logs hottest temperature on record of 18.3C
Lying around the South Pole, Antarctica is the world’s southernmost continent. The fifth-largest continent is covered by a vast ice sheet and is the world’s highest, driest, windiest, coldest, and iciest continent. In fact, the ice sheet contains nearly 30 million cubic kilometers of ice, which is about 90 percent of the world’s ice and 80 percent of its freshwater.
You may wonder how cold or warm the continent is. Temperatures reach a minimum of below −80 °C in the interior in winter and reach a maximum of between 5 °C and 15 °C near the coast in summer. Over the last half-century, however, temperatures on the icy continent have risen by almost 3C, and on February 7, a record high temperature of 18.3C was logged on the continent's north-west tip. Since the Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming regions on earth, the record-setting temperature indicates that global warming is accelerating. In fact, it was only five years ago when the previous record of 17.5C was logged.
While glaciers are retreating and ice sheets are melting on the icy continent, humans are still warming the planet at an unprecedented pace. Sea levels are going to rise soon.
Read the article and learn about what is going on in Antarctica.
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