Never before

Parts of Antarctica have recently recorded temperatures of more than 70 degrees warmer than average; the Arctic is almost as bad at more than 50 degrees warmer than average.

The Antarctic continent as a whole on Friday was about 8.6 degrees warmer than a baseline temperature between 1979 and 2000, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer. That 8-degree heating over an already warmed-up average is unusual, think of it as if the entire United States was 8 degrees hotter than normal.

At the same time, on Friday the Arctic as a whole was 6 degrees warmer than the 1979 to 2000 average.

By comparison, the world as a whole was only 1.1 degrees above the 1979 to 2000 average. Globally the 1979 to 2000 average is about half a degree warmer than the 20th century average.