Climate Change Made California Drought 20% worse

Because the effects of climate change are smeared across the globe – and it isn’t simply that the air is warmer, but that a host of other environmental factors like evaporation rates and rainfall – it can be tough to pin down exactly what human factors have contributed to specific events like California’s drought. “But warming changes the baseline amount of water that’s available to us, because it sends water back into the sky”. The researchers estimated the agriculture industry in California will see more than 10,000 jobs eliminated and will lose a bout $1.84 billion in 2015.

The findings suggest that within a few decades continually increasing temperatures and resulting moisture losses will push California into even more persistent dry conditions, according to the researchers, who add that the rising temperatures may be making things worse by driving moisture from plants and soil into the air.

Earlier this month, Governor Brown penned an open letter to Republican presidential candidates ahead of their first debate, asking them to detail their plans to address climate change. “But it’s definitely made worse by global warming”.

“It used to be that half the years were warm, and half were cool”, Dr. Noah Diffenbaugh, the Stanford study’s lead author, told The New York Times.

Scientists said it could be just a temporary reprieve when California’s rains resume, which might happen this winter.

Almost all of California is facing abnormally dry conditions, and extreme drought persists in 71 percent of the state. But as time goes on, precipitation will be less able to make up for the intensified warmth.

The real driver of the drought of course has been the drop in precipitation.

In April 2014, a Utah State University study also linked climate change to the drought, pointing to climate conditions that likely were worsened by a buildup of greenhouse gases.

The team’s best guess is that the true range “is about 15% to 20% – smack dab in the middle”, Williams said.

Other research bolsters the case for a connection between warming and the intensity of the drought.

Average temperatures in the region have steady ticked upward – about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit over the 114-year period, which the authors say is in line with a rise in fossil fuel emissions. “There’s evidence going back to the Paleo record that you really don’t find anything comparable to this over the past thousand years”.