Currently in Boston — June 12, 2023: A few showers in the forecast

The weather, currently.

We finally had a dry day without any showers and Monday also looks mostly dry with a blend of clouds and sunshine temperatures will be between 75 and 80 in the afternoon with light winds. A disturbance in the atmosphere will bring the chance for showers Monday night and Tuesday. Temperatures will be a little cooler on Tuesday staying in the 70s. It won't rain all the time and many hours will be dry. Other than a few showers Tuesday night it will be partly to mostly cloudy. Temperatures will be in the '50s for reasonably good sleeping weather. Wednesday starts with a blend of clouds and sunshine but there is the chance for a few showers again in the afternoon some of these could contain the rumble of thunder and a heavy downpour. Thursday is dry again.

— Dave Epstein

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