The temperatures at the Earth's poles have reached utterly terrifying heights. Antarctica saw the mercury rise to 40C warmer than seasonal norms, whereas at the north pole it was 30C higher than normal.
Scientists believe it would be "virtually impossible" for these coldest areas of our planet to reach these temperatures without humans burning fossil fuels. Man-made climate change is well-established scientific fact. There have been many myths circulated about it which you can see debunked here and you can also read about the impact it is going to have on people here in Wales by clinking on this link.
Read more: Why you should be sceptical about whether Boris Johnson really cares about climate change
What exactly was the high temperatures?
The Concordia station, which is high on the Antarctic Plateau, hit a record temperature of -11.8C last Friday which is more than 40C warmer than usual for the time of year. Elsewhere, on inland Princess Elizabeth Land the Soviet-built Vostok station registered a temperature of -17.7C which was 15C above the previous record.
There were also broken records near the north pole with some areas seeing temperatures 30C above normal including Norway and Greenland. This is very concerning because if there is less ice at the north and south poles it can lead to even more sea level rise. Cardiff is one of the most at risk cities in the world for this.
What is causing the high temperatures?
Scientists believe that the temperatures near the south pole are being caused by a phenomenon called an "atmospheric river".
Speaking to The Guardian, Professor Julie Arblaster, a climate researcher at Monash University said: “These are rivers of moisture in the air that bring warm and moist air to certain locations, and there was a really significant one occurring in that region over Antarctica.”
Alex Sen Gupta, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, added that strong winds coming from Australia were contributing to the unusual temperatures in Antarctica.
“We have had a combination of strong weather systems over the Southern Ocean to the south of Australia that aligned to produce very strong polewards winds stretching from Australia to eastern Antarctica.”
Really worrying is the fact that we currently have the lowest extent of sea ice on Antarctica on record. The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 4.8C warmer compared to a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, the Associated Press reported. On the same day, the Arctic as a whole was 3.3C warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.
