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- Currently in the Twin Cities — September 19, 2023: A soggy weekend looming
Currently in the Twin Cities — September 19, 2023: A soggy weekend looming
Plus, Antarctic sea ice is having a weird year.
Sven Sundgaard & Eric Holthaus
September 19, 2023
The weather, currently.
A soggy weekend looming
The warming trend continues Tuesday with highs reaching 80 degrees. Wednesday looks to be the peak of this latest late September heat wave with highs in the mid 80s. Thursday and possibly even Friday will bring another 80 degree day.
A few isolated showers are possible late Wednesday/Wednesday night but the bigger developing story is the potential for a soggy weekend. An upper level trough could become a slow moving system bringing a few days of clouds and occasional rain showers that we desperately need. Since June 1, we’re behind more than 8 inches of rainfall in the Twin Cities.
What you need to know, currently.
Antarctic sea ice continues to grow at a pace far below any previous year on record. As we approach springtime in the Southern Hemisphere and with a Pacific El Niño strengthening, there are worries that melt season may have already begun weeks early.
There is some speculation that Antarctic sea ice extent, which has been at daily record lows for the last 4 months, might already have peaked for this year.
It has been a very weird year, that I'm not sure anyone entirely understands.
— Dr. Robert Rohde (@RARohde)
2:21 PM • Sep 18, 2023
The BBC interviewed Antarctic research scientists, and their words are worth reflecting on.
"It's so far outside anything we've seen, it's almost mind-blowing," Walter Meier, who monitors sea-ice with the National Snow and Ice Data Center, told the BBC.
Since it is already floating, melting sea ice does not on its own raise sea levels. But sea ice forms a buffer encircling Antarctica from warming waters, and the loss of that sea ice would accelerate the loss of land ice in the Antarctic ice sheets, which would raise sea levels — perhaps dangerously so.
This is one further sign that we are in the emergency phase of the climate crisis, and that world leaders need to do uncomfortable things to restore a climate balance and pave the way for a just future for everyone.
What you can do, currently.
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