California’s future: More big droughts and massive floods, new study finds
Those types of extremes are not new, but because of climate change, they can be expected to occur more frequently, as hotter global temperatures and warming oceans are putting more water vapor into the air, concluded the study, which was published Monday in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change.
And perhaps most ominous, the odds are rising that a mega-storm -- like the one that famously flooded
"All of our wet winters and big flood events are due to atmospheric rivers," said
Monday's study is the first to estimate the number of wild drought-to-flood swings facing
An 1862-level storm today would cause more than
It would prompt hundreds of landslides and road washouts, as well as levee collapses on Delta islands, major floods in the
Potentially worse than a monster earthquake, such a storm system would bring weeks of drenching rain and hurricane-force winds the likes that no living Californian has ever seen.
"Basically you just want to get out of the way in a storm like that. It's a matter of flood warning and evacuation. That's about all you can do," said
Storms of that magnitude have happened six other times in
Even if a massive storm like that doesn't happen anytime soon, the increasing swings in extreme weather -- called "precipitation whiplash events" by the researchers -- are already starting to pose major challenges for
The water systems that provide 40 million residents with drinking water and irrigate millions of acres of crops were built generations ago in a different climate. By relying on huge amounts of snow to accumulate in the
But that model won't work as well in the future. As the climate continues to warm, the computer models analyzed by Swain and his colleagues found that while there won't be much change in the amount of precipitation overall in
"It's the climate that
Some new off-stream reservoirs will need to be built, said Lund. But another cheaper solution lies in better managing groundwater, he said. In wet years, Lund and Hanak said, farmers and other landowners can be paid to allow rivers to pour onto their fields and open spaces. That water seeps into the ground and recharges underground aquifers for use later. Reservoir owners also can re-tool their systems to move water out of full reservoirs and into underground water banks, Lund added.
Some areas, like the
Lund said that flood control projects will have to be beefed up around the state. And new techniques, like capturing storm water and recycling treated sewage, and putting it underground, also will be critical.
"Protecting groundwater is going to become more important," said Lund. "That is by far the largest storage we have. That will always be the case no matter how many reservoirs we have."
Swain said seeing the likely trends now can help reduce risks in the decades ahead.
"It sounds like a lot of doom and gloom," he said. "There is some bad news here. It's going to be a real challenge to manage these extremes of drought and flood. We can do it, but it is going to be a challenge."
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