Antarctica recorded a temperature of 30°C above normal

East Antarctica recorded temperatures above 30°C above normal this week, an “absolute record”, experts reported on Twitter.

The Franco-Italian research base Concordia, installed in Dome C of the Antarctic Plateau at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, recorded a “heat” of 11.5°C below zero on Friday, “an absolute record for all months combined, exceeding 13.7°C below zero on 17 December 2016,” said Etienne Kapikian, from Météo-France, the Service National Meteorological of France.

Although temperatures should have dropped by the end of the southern summer, the Dumont d'Urville base, located on the coast of the Adelie Land, set the record for the mildest month of March, with +4.9°C, and a minimum temperature of +0.2°C on March 18.

“Frost-free days are occasional (in Dumont d'Urville), but they never occurred after February 22 (in 1991),” said Gaëtan Heymes, from Météo-France.

The expert described a “historically mild event over the east” of the frozen continent, with temperatures of 30 to 35°C above seasonal norms.

“This is the time when temperatures should drop rapidly, as the summer solstice occurs in December,” said Jonathan Wille, a researcher at the Grenoble Institute of Environmental Geosciences

“This heat wave in Antarctica is changing what we thought was possible for the Antarctic climate,” he added.

Although at the time of an event it is not possible to attribute it to climate change, one of the clearest signs of global warming is the increase in the number and intensity of heat waves.

The poles are warming even faster than the planet average, which has increased on average by around 1.1°C since the pre-industrial era.

In February, the Antarctic ice sheet reached its smallest area since satellite measurements began in 1979, with less than 2 million km2, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.

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