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- Currently in San Francisco — September 19, 2023: Tuesday follows Monday's template
Currently in San Francisco — September 19, 2023: Tuesday follows Monday's template
Plus, Antarctic sea ice is having a weird year.
Eric Holthaus & Britta Shoot
September 19, 2023
The weather, currently.
Tuesday will be another partly cloudy, warm day in SF
No, you’re not stuck in the movie Groundhog Day. You just live in San Francisco, where on Tuesday the weather will mimic Monday’s forecast. We’ll begin the day with clouds overhead, with the fog burning off later as the temps hit the high 60s. Winds will stay steady up to 10mph. Overnight, we’ll see more cloud cover and lows in the mid-50s.
— Britta Shoot
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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