Antarctica's warmest day: Scientists detect a record-high temperature of 18.3°C on the frozen continent

• Reading from the Esperanza research base was recorded at midday on Thursday 
• Beats beats the previous record of 17.5°C (63.5°F) in March 2015 by 0.8°C 
• This Antarctic Peninsula region is among the fastest warming regions on earth 
• Temperature is approximately the same warm as an average June day in the UK

Antarctica has experienced its hottest temperature on record, with an Argentinian research station on the frozen continent clocking a balmy 18.3°C (63.5°F).

The reading from the Esperanza base was recorded at midday on Thursday and beats beats the previous record of 17.5°C (63.5°F) in March 2015 by 0.8°C. 

Records at the base in Hope Bay, Trinity Peninsula, began in 1961 and the announcement was shared by the World Meteorological organisation (WMO). 

The record-high temperature is around the same warmth as an average June day in Nottingham, UK, according to figures from the Met Office.  

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SMN Argentina said in a tweet: 'At midday Esperanza Base recorded a new historic temperature record (since 1961) of 18.3 degrees Celsius.

'This temperature beat the previous record of 17.5 degrees Celsius recorded on March 24 2015.'

It also said the Marambio Base on Marambio Island, another Argentinian Antartica base, had recorded the highest temperature for February since 1971.

Thermometers here reached 14.1°C (57.38°F) and beating a previous high recorded in February 2013.

The Antarctic Peninsula, the northwest tip near South America, is among the fastest warming regions on earth, with temperatures rising almost 3C (5.4F) over the past 50 years, the WMO said.

Some 87 per cent of the glaciers along its west coast have 'retreated' over those five decades and have shown an 'accelerated retreat' in the past 12 years, it added.

Professor James Renwick, a climate scientist at Victoria University of Wellington, told the Guardian Australia the WMO committee would likely reconvene to ratify the new record.

He told the paper: 'The reading is impressive as it's only five years since the previous record was set and this is almost one degree centigrade higher.

'It's a sign of the warming that has been happening there that's much faster than the global average.

'To have a new record set that quickly is surprising but who knows how long that will last? Possibly not that long at all.'

Esperanza was the site of the first ever shots fired in anger in Antartica in 1952 when an Argentinian shore party fired a machine gun over the heads of a British Antarctic Survey team unloading supplies from the R.R.S John Briscoe.

The incident ended with an Argentinian diplomatic apology.

Last month British endurance swimmer and climate activist Lewis Pugh became the first person to swim under an Antarctic ice sheet.

He performed the feat, swimming for 10 minutes and 17 seconds in the river under the melting ice in just trunks, cap and goggles, to raise awareness of climate change at the Earth's poles.

Recent research found the rate of ice loss from five Antarctic glaciers had doubled in six years and was five times faster than in the 1990s.