Publication Date August 1, 2013 | Washington Post

Greenland soars to its highest temperature ever recorded, almost 80 degrees F.

Greenland
Satellite photo of the area around Maniitsoq and Sugar Loaf Mountain on Tuesday 30 July 2013. Photo: NASA’s Terra satellite
Satellite photo of the area around Maniitsoq and Sugar Loaf Mountain on Tuesday 30 July 2013. Photo: NASA’s Terra satellite

The Danish Meteorological Institute is reporting that on Tuesday, July 30, the mercury rose to 25.9 C (78.6 F) at a station in Greenland, the highest temperature measured in the Arctic country since records began in 1958.

The balmy reading was logged at the observing station Maniitsoq / Sugar Loaf, which is on Greenland’s southwest coast, the DMI reports. It exceeded the 25.5 C (77.9 F) reading taken at  Kangerlussuaq on July 27, 1990, in the same general area...

The DMI says the warmth was not “unnatural”, but explains it fits into a long-term pattern of climate warming.

“[T]here is an indisputable gradual increase in temperature in Greenland,” DMI writes. “Along the way, any ‘warm event’ thus have a higher probability of being slightly warmer than the previous one"