Future Droughts and Effects on Carbon Canyon

A Los Angeles Times front-page article from today by Evan Halper has the headline: "State's droughts may get a whole lot worse."

Advanced modeling research by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in northern California suggest that:

California could be hit with significantly more dangerous and more frequent droughts in the near future as changes in weather patterns triggered by global warming block rainfall from reaching the state.

This is postulated due to increasing melting sea ice in the Arctic leading to stronger high-pressure systems in the Pacific Ocean causing wet air to move to the north rather than to California.

Estimates are that, within 20 to 30 years, as much as 15% less rainfall could be experienced and, with the last drought wreaking havoc to our agricultural economy and causing major problems in other way, even California, "the state most proactively confronting global warming is not prepared for its fallout."

A study published in Nature Communications observes that the Arctic is going to be ice-free in the summer and the resulting changes in precipiration patterns means that, though the average drop in rainfall would be up to 15%, some years would be considerably less and other more.

Lead scientist Ivana Cvijanovic commented, "the similarities between what will happen and the most recent drought are really striking."  The work of Cvijanovic and her colleagues was federally funded and, as Halper observed,

The findings contrast starkly with Trump administration policy on warming, which ignores the mainstream scientific consensus that human activity is driving it.  The administration has been working aggressively to unravel Obama-era action on climate change, withdrawing from the Paris agreement which seeks to limit its impact, dismantling restrictons on power plant emissions, and signaling it will relax vehicle mileage rules that are a crucial component to addressing global warming.

Other climate scientists note that the latest study is one of several "that have signaled a connection between the ice melt in the Arctic and the building of atmospheric ridges affecting California.  Michael Mann of the Earth Science Center at Pennsylvania State University stated, "the impacts of climate change may exceed our adaptive capacity.  The leaves only mitigation—doing something about climate change—as a viable strategy moving forward."

Stanford's Noah Diffenbaugh noted "the change is dramatic, and it is taking place faster than had been projected by climate models."  He went on to observe that making a concrete connection between ice melt and effects on rain and snow fall in California is a significant milestone.

In fact, Cvijanovich suggested that, if there hadn't been so much melting in recent years, our recent mega-drought might have been avoided, though the model she worked on only addresses future impacts. [Note:  because of a comment raised below, here is the text of the article from which the previous sentence was based: But the atmospheric patterns leading to that drought had all the characteristics of those that can be triggered by Arctic sea ice melt, Cvijanovic said, raising the prospect that California might have dodged the latest drought — or at least not have been hit as hard — if not for the large amount of ice that has already vanished.]

She concluded:

There is lots of research to be done. Hopefully we do it in time to allow people to plan for whatever may be coming.

As for Carbon Canyon, what will be comng, provided the modeling proves prescient, is both longer and drier drought conditions providing more fuels for wildfires, like the latest ones in the last couple of days including the massive Thomas fire in Ventura County that is raging out of control, and flooding and mudslides, worsened by burned slopes, during heavier rainfall years.

Coupled with the recent Times piece on the role of wind in the rapid spread of wildfires, this article is another stark warning for local officials whose responsibility is for jurisdictions like Carbon Canyon and for state and federal leaders more broadly.

The more knowledge we (or, at least, some of us) obtain about climate change, the more pressing the need for mitigation becomes.  This week's high winds and the much higher than average temperatures continue to be an issue with respect to the fire risk in the Canyon, but a Fire Watch staff member was seated this morning in a chair outside his vehicle on eastbound Carbon Canyon Road west of Olinda Village.  This program, funded by The Irvine Company, provided an observer a couple of months ago during the recent firestorms in the Anaheim Hills/Corona area, so it's good, at least, to know someone is literally watching.