Antarctica hits highest temperature on record

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Temperatures on the Antarctic continent have risen by almost 3C over the past 50 years.

Report informs, citing the BBC, that Antarctica has fixed a record high temperature of 18.3C (64.9F), which is 0.8C hotter than the previous peak temperature of 17.5C, in March 2015.

“[This] is not a figure you would normally associate with Antarctica, even in the summertime,” a spokeswoman for the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Clare Nullis, told reporters in Geneva.

The organization said about 87% of the glaciers along Antarctica’s west coast had “retreated.”

The glaciers have shown an “accelerated retreat” in the past 12 years, the WMO added, due to global warming.

Scientists warn that global warming is causing so much melting at the South Pole. It will eventually disintegrate – causing global sea levels to rise by at least three meters (10ft) over centuries.