Thu. Mar 28th, 2024
A UC Riverside study suggests that California might experience more intensive winter rains. | Credit: California Department of Water Resources

While the news that California isn’t on the verge of a year-round drought in this ever warming weather is good, but a new research by Robert Allen, professor of Earth Sciences at the UC Riverside Earth Sciences reports that this precipitation that the state would be receiving, would mostly be during the winter months, and non-winter months will be even dryer than they usually are, with little or no rain. “It is good news,” Allen said. “But only relative to the alternative of no rain at all.”

Allen has built his latest study on his 2017 research that said that global warming will lead to increased winter precipitation in California by the end of this precipitation. The findings of Allen and his co-author Ray Anderson, a research soil scientist at the USDA-ARS US Salinity Lab research, titled “21st century California drought risk linked to model fidelity of the El Niño teleconnection” were published recently in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science.

The paper focused on how the “greenhouse-gas-induced climate change” will impact the drought conditions in California. The findings of the study are based on 40 climate models that were compared to actual precipitation, soil moisture, and streamflow in the state between 1950 and 2000.

Although, historically, nearly 90 percent of the rain and snow in California have come during the winter months, i.e., during December, January, and February, says Allen- with sporadic rains scattered over the rest of the months. But now, the warming surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean are probably going to amplify the rainy season by directing stormy El Niño conditions over the state in the winter.

But the bottom line is that the flooding and mudslides that came with the heavy winter rains of 2017 probably weren’t an aberration, but it actually might be California’s new weather norm.

Allen says that the trick is to find a way with which we can capture excess water for dry periods. “It’s all about smoothing the seasonable differences. If we can take advantage of the enhanced winter rainfall, we can hopefully get through the drying trends the rest of the year.”

However trapping the winter precipitation will be quite a challenge, especially because it is probably going to come more in the form of rain than snow due to the ever warming climate. Historically, snow that falls on mountains fills reservoirs and provides water to agriculture when it is needed in the summer, but rain will probably just run off unless provisions are made to capture it.

Allen’s findings also do not bring good news for California’s fire season. The state’s new weather could be similar to or even surpass the fire season of 2017, which was the worst in California’s history- since wet winters lead to lush spring growth that tends to parch quickly during the hot and dry season, becoming wildfire fuel.

Allen adds that these “new norm” projections aren’t for a distant future.

“I think it’s here now, so we need to start acting as quickly as possible,” he said. “Adaptation is incredibly important in response to climate change, and in this case it means enhancing our water storage capabilities, our reservoirs and dam structures, because things are going to become drier in the non-winter months.”

And what advice does Allen have for ordinary citizens? This might be teh right time to start investing in rain barrels.

“In Southern California, it could mean having native plants in your yard because a grass yard has to be irrigated, and that’s probably not the wisest use of water,” he said. “It’s all about living sustainably.”

By Purnima

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