Antarctica Sets Record High Temperature: 64.9 Degrees

Antarctica, the coldest, windiest and driest continent on Earth, set a record high temperature on Thursday, underscoring the global warming trend, researchers said.

The previous record high temperature for Esperanza, the Argentinian
 research station, was 63 degrees, which was set in March 2015.

Esperanza, Argentina’s research station on the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, reached 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit, or 18.2 degrees Celsius, breaking the previous record of 63.5 degrees set on March 24, 2015, according to Argentina’s National Meteorological Service. The station has been recording temperatures since 1961.

The temperature at Esperanza, where it is summer, was comparable to the weather in Los Angeles and Huntsville, Ala., where the high temperatures were 64 on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

The Weather and Climate Extremes Archive, a committee of the World Meteorological Organization, will verify the temperature, the organization said in a news release.

Read the story from The New York Times by Derrick Bryson Taylor - “Antarctica Sets Record High Temperature: 64.9 Degrees.”

Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change

In a sign of growing tensions between scientists and the Trump administration, researchers published a scientific paper Wednesday that was conceived and written as an explicit refutation to an assertion by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt about climate change.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator
 Scott Pruitt speaks with coal miners in Sycamore, Pa., in April.

The study, in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, sets up a direct test of a claim by Pruitt, made in written Senate comments following his confirmation hearing, that “over the past two decades satellite data indicates there has been a leveling off of warming.”

After reviewing temperature trends contained in three satellite data sets going back to 1979, the paper concludes that the data sets show a global warming trend — and that Pruitt was incorrect.

Read Chris Mooney’s on The Washington Post - “Scientists just published an entire study refuting Scott Pruitt on climate change.”