Russians bracing for the typical winter chill have been left baffled by unusually warm weather which scuppered the country's hopes of a white Christmas.

At this time of year, Moscow is usually blanketed in snow, but it is not expected until the turn of the year after temperatures on Tuesday climbed to 43.2F, the hottest Christmas Eve on record.

Earlier this month, the capital was transformed into a winter wonderland as roads, buildings and people were smothered with snowfall.

But pictures over the festive period show revellers parading along the bare tarmac with a distinctively less seasonal feel.

Russians bracing for the typical winter chill have been left baffled by unusually warm weather which has scuppered the country's hopes of a white Christmas (Lubyanskaya Square in Moscow pictured)

The jump in temperature comes amid a spike in the rate ice caps are melting in the Antarctic, sparking environmentalists to pin the shift in weather patterns on global warming (file photo)

A map shows temperatures across the globe today, as Russia enjoys an unseasonably warm winter

The jump in temperature comes amid a spike in the rate ice sheets are melting in the Antarctic, sparking environmentalists to pin the shift in weather patterns on global warming.

And a hot patch of water spotted off the eastern coast of New Zealand has poured petrol on an already burning international row over climate change.

The rare absence of winter snow follows a summer where wildfires ravaged the Russian countryside and blew smoke into cities.

A woman walks along the Channel of Moscow in the capital on December 26 during the unusually warm weather

Pictures over the festive period show revellers parading along the bare tarmac with a distinctively less seasonal feel

President Vladimir Putin, who has expressed scepticism about man-made climate change, even said he would double down on his ecological efforts.

At his end-of-year press conference, he said: 'We know that in the history of the Earth there have been periods of warming and cooling, and this might depend on the global processes in the universe.

'A small tilt of the Earth's axis and its orbit around the sun can lead to and have already led to very serious climate changes on the Earth, which had dramatic consequences - good or bad, they were still dramatic.'

'And it is happening again now. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to work out exactly how humankind affects climate change.

'But we cannot stay idle either, I agree with my colleagues. We should make our best efforts to prevent dramatic changes in the climate.'

Earlier this month, the capital was transformed into a winter wonderland as roads, buildings and people were smothered with snowfall (pictured December 3)

A view of the city of Moscow through a reflection in a mirror wall of the Federation Tower of Moscow's International Business Centre on December 20

Flowers of rhododendron blossom at the botanical garden of Moscow's State University during the record Christmas temperatures

At the other pole, scientists have found the Antarctic has seen its biggest melting on record.

Between November and February, ice melting rates in the region accelerates and around 8 per cent of the caps disappear.

But monitoring by the University of Liège in Belgium found that on Christmas Eve 16 per cent of the ice went into meltdown - an area the size of Denmark.

Robin Bell, a geophysics professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told Earther: '[The ice shelves are] kind of like the cork in the bottle. They're holding back a lot of the ice in Antarctica.

'It means you're pumping more ice into the ocean, and that's what matters for sea level.'

A hot patch of water spotted off the eastern coast of New Zealand has poured petrol on an already burning international row over climate change

A massive red blob off New Zealand's east coast is a hot patch of water reaching temperatures up to 20C degrees

Meanwhile a hot patch of water off the eastern coast of New Zealand has created a huge red blob on heat maps as a marine heatwave sweeps the South Pacific Ocean.

The blotch stretches tens of thousands of square kilometres and is one of the warmest sea spots on the planet with temperatures of up to 20C.

The water is 4C degrees above the average temperature of 10 to 15C, nearing temperatures in the Tropics, which range between 20 and 30C.

Professor James Renwick, a weather and climate researcher at Victoria University, said the phenomenon is caused when an area becomes concentrated with sunshine and little wind.