Currently in the Twin Cities — June 12, 2023: Lots of sun, warmer Monday

The weather, currently.

Sunday brought the coolest temperatures in more than three weeks. The low at MSP was 50, the first below normal low temperature since May 20^th also. Embarrass took the cold spot in northeast Minnesota with a frosty low of 32°F early Sunday. We’ll already be topping out back in the low 80s with heat building in again midweek. We’ll be very near 90°F by Wednesday with briefly cooler readings Friday and Saturday which is also when we have the next chance of spotty thunder. We may be heating back up to near 90°F early next week as well.

— Sven Sundgaard

What you need to know, currently.

Global ocean temperatures are soaring and climate scientists aren’t really sure why.

For more than three months, the oceans have been warmer than ever before in the history of human recordkeeping. Right now, North Atlantic temperatures are about 35% higher than the previous record — a shockingly large amount that is further above the previous record than any other recordbreaking year in history.

These kinds of superlatives may be difficult to read and process. That’s not just true of casual observers, it’s true of the scientists who have devoted their lives to studying the Earth’s climate system. The Earth is officially in an El Niño now — a periodic warming of the Pacific Ocean that happens every 3-5 years — but that doesn’t necessarily explain why the Atlantic is so warm right now.

One still-controversial theory for this sudden warming has been put forth by the legendary James Hansen, the former NASA chief whose testimony to Congress back in 1988 first put global warming on the map. In 2020, new shipping regulations sharply limited sulfur pollution from ocean ships in the North Atlantic, and sulfate aerosol emissions — which have a planetary cooling effect — have fallen sharply since. If you run the numbers, as Hansen has, such a sharp reduction might partially explain the surge in Atlantic Ocean temps.

-Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

Welcome to the new-and-improved Currently!

If you’re a big fan of Currently, please share us with a friend! Our brand-new referral program is a way to give our biggest fans direct ownership of our company. We are the first weather service in the world to do this, and we’ll have much more in the coming days on our hopes and dreams for member-ownership, as well as Currently as a whole.

Thank you for taking this exciting journey with us!

—Eric Holthaus