Currently in Portland — November 1st, 2023: Here comes the rain

The weather, currently.

After being gifted with a dry Halloween, the rain is back, and it isn’t fooling around. There are heavy rain warnings for the whole region, and flooding may occur. People are being asked to make sure storm drains are clear of rain and debris to help keep streets from collecting water. And if you (like me) haven’t addressed your gutters yet, this is the last chance! Wednesday’s high and low temps are within just a few degrees of each other, so don’t expect a daytime warmup. In fact, it’s time to unpack any scarves, gloves, or other cozy layers you thought you didn’t need yet. It’s officially the cold and rainy season now!

— Stella Harris

What you need to know, currently.

The data are in, and October 2023 was the hottest October in history.

With a year so unusually warm as this, it’s sometimes easy to assume that scientists didn’t see it coming. That’s not quite true. In fact, global climate models created 10 years ago still are doing a great job of capturing how extreme this year is.

And it’s not just this year. In general, global temperatures in recent years have been tracking right along the middle of where scientists thought they’d be by now assuming emissions kept rising. (They have.) In fact, temperatures are not too far off from where scientists back in the 1980s thought they’d be right now, assuming a scenario of only limited climate action came true. (It has.)

So, we saw this coming. And we should have done more to stop it. And we know that ramped up action in the coming years will still work.

In the 35 years since the 1988 congressional testimony of NASA climate scientist James Hansen, humanity has now used effectively all of its atmospheric carbon budget for keeping global warming at or below 1.5°C since preindustrial levels. But it doesn’t have to go much further than that if we do what we know we need to do.

— Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

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