On average, the planet as a whole warmed 0.6°C in 50 years and the cities warmed by up to 2.0-3.0°C.  Antarctica, as secluded as any place on the planet, has not escaped the heat, despite there being no research to back that up.  Now we do.  A new study by Eric Steig of the University of Washington and a few of his colleagues used satellite data to show that on average the entire continent warmed by 0.5°C between 1957 and 2006.  An article by Catherine Brahic in the New Scientist describes the difficulties scientists have had.   

"When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its 2007 report, it declared: "it is likely there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica)".  The exception wasn't made because there was proof that Antarctica was cooling, says Gareth Williams of the British Antarctic Survey, but because there was not sufficient proof that the continent was warming."

So, how did Steig and his colleagues do it? 

"The majority of weather stations on Antarctica sit around the coast, with only two providing an unbroken record from the continent's interior. Steig and colleagues overcame this lack of data by using satellite data and statistical techniques to fill in the gaps. . . . "The results show that the continent is not warming uniformly. Temperatures on the West Antarctica ice sheet, which includes the Antarctic peninsula and is as large as California, Texas, Alaska and Kansas put together, are rising much faster than in East Antarctica."

Climate model simulations offer some clues as to why - the decline in regional sea ice cover and changes in atmospheric circulation, both as a result of increases in greenhouse gases.

However, the changes in surface temperature are not what will cause the coming rises in the melting of the glaciers.  David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey says that Antarctic ice shelves are breaking up because of rises in sea surface temperatures, not air temperatures.  He and his colleagues are monitoring the Wilkins ice sheet, on the west side, which is likely to vanish soon, which follows the disappearance of the Larsen B ice shelf, also on the west side, in 2002, causing global sea levels to rise.