  Local temperature defined by a local canonical state of the respective
subsystem, does not always exist in quantum many body systems. Here, we give
some examples of how this breakdown of the temperature concept on small length
scales might be observed in experiments: Measurements of magnetic properties of
an anti-ferromagnetic spin-1 chain. We show that those magnetic properties are
in fact strictly local. As a consequence their measurement reveals whether the
local (reduced) state can be thermal. If it is, a temperature may be associated
to the measurement results, while this would lead to inconsistencies otherwise.
