A UN agency has confirmed that an Arctic temperature record of 38 degrees Celsius was reached in eastern Siberia during a prolonged heatwave last year that fanned wildfires across northern Russia's forests and tundra, further raising fears about the intensity of global warming.
The record was hit on June 20, 2020, in the town of Verkhoyansk, which is located 115 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in the northern part of Sakha Republic (Yakutia), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a statement on December 14.
Temperatures have been measured there since 1885.
"This new Arctic record is one of a series of observations reported to the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes that sound the alarm bells about our changing climate," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, adding that a temperature record of 18.3 degrees Celsius was recorded in the Antarctic last year.
The average temperatures across Arctic Siberia reached up to 10 degrees Celsius above normal "for much of summer last year," the WMO said, "fueling devastating fires, driving massive sea-ice loss, and playing a major role in 2020 being one of the three warmest years on record."
The WMO announcement comes after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on December 13 formally linking climate change and global security that was supported by a majority of UN member states.
