9 March 2017:
The World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Commission for Climatology international evaluation committee has verified record temperatures for three defined Antarctic Regions, with the aim of increasing understanding of the Antarctic’s distinct climatic regimes.
The “Antarctica Region” has been defined by the WMO as all land and ice south of 60°S and a record high of 19.8 °C has been established for this region from Signy Island on 30 January 1982. For the “Antarctic Continent” region, defined as the main continental landmass and adjoining islands, the record is 17.5 °C (from Esperanza Station on 24 March 2015) and for the “Antarctic Plateau”, defined as at or above 2500 meters, the record high is -7.0 °C (from the D-80 Weather Station on 28 December 1989).
The extremes have been identified based on only those events with available high-quality ground-based data. It is possible, and likely, that greater extremes have occurred in the Antarctic Region.
The full WMO press release can be found here and the full details of the assessment can be found in this article in EOS.
Maria de Los Milagros Skansi, John King, Matthew A. Lazzara, Randall S. Cerveny, Jose Luis Stella, Susan Solomon, Phil Jones, David Bromwich, James Renwick, Christopher C. Burt, Thomas C. Peterson, Manola Brunet, Fatima Driouech, Russell Vose, and Daniel Krahenbuhl, “Evaluating highest-temperature extremes in the Antarctic”, Eos, 98, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017EO068325.