Twenty years ago this week, scientists found the first “hole” in the ozone layer over the Arctic Circle.  On the other side of the world comes disturbing news of unusually high temperatures recorded at two places in Antarctica.

The thermometer at Esperanza Base just south of the southern tip of Argentina read 17.5 degrees.  If confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, it will have been a record high – warmer than the 17.1 degrees measured there in 1961.  The reading was taken on 24 March, one day after the nearby weather station at Marambio Base saw a record high of its own, at 17.4 degrees C.

Technically, the bases are outside the Antarctic Circle, connected to the continent by the Antarctic Peninsula.  But it shows how the ends of the Earth are heating up.

This news of a rapidly warming Antarctica comes out at the same time a new study declared, “Ice shelves in West Antarctica have lost as much as 18 percent of their volume over the last two decades, with rapid acceleration occurring over the last decade.”