California to 'Whiplash' Between Drought, Floods: Study

California will zigzag between droughts and floods which will become more intense and more frequent in the coming decades unless global emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases are checked, researchers said.

The Golden State has already experienced a rapid rise in such "whiplash" events -- careering from a record multi-year drought between 2012 and 2016, to heavy flooding in the winter of 2016-17.

California Drought Dry Riverbed, Source: Wikimedia Commons

The situation will worsen as the global climate alters due to mankind's voracious burning of coal, oil, and gas for energy, a team wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change.

They projected that wet-to-dry extremes in California may double under a worst-case scenario in which fossil fuel emissions continue growing until 2100 instead of the urgent reduction scientists say our planet needs.

Such unfettered emissions would lead to average global warming far exceeding the ceiling of two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) set out in the Paris Agreement concluded by the world's nations in 2015.

A recent analysis said national pledges made under the pact slow emissions, but still put the world on track for warming of 3C or more -- dangerous, but lower than the outlier scenario used for the study.

Based on their models, the researchers projected a 25-percent rise in the frequency of so-called whiplash events for northern California this century, and up to 100 percent in the south of the state.

A disaster on the scale of the 1862 "Great Flood" was likely to occur at least once between now and 2060 and would "probably lead to considerable loss of life and economic damages approaching a trillion dollars," said the study.

Multiple such events were "plausible" until 2100.

Read full article: AFP

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• Drought
• Climate Change
• Climate Change Adaptation
• Climate Change Resilience
• Flood management
• Flood prediction
• Flood Risk Management
• Environment
• Climate
• Flood Mapping

2 Comments

1. The basic way to prevent flooding, or more accurately, to reduce flood damage, is to make sure most farmlands are based on soil conservation planning of farming on or near the contour! This slows the water flowing on the fields and reduces the runoff or spreads it over more time! Thus the peak flow is spread over more time. That is what I was taught as an engineer, prevention is more important than finding a cure.

2. All of the weather related issues can be directly attributed to liberal policies in that state. For example: they need water. So they prevent people from collecting their rainwater meaning their water must come from underground rivers etc. There are many cascade effects of their anti rainwater policies. Above ground rivers slow their flow and finally stop. The fish and other river life are now living in a ph that WILL become deadly. People swimming, forest animals drinking the toxic waters. More landslides because water table has dropped. More mudslides even from a minor rain.  But worse of all the over taxation and misdirected funds do not get to the areas requiring assistance.  Global warming has been proven to be the biggest scam in world history.  The year round northern ice cap has accelerated it growth. 3 large cruise ships this week need ice breakers to free them. They were told global warming would cause the artic to be passable all year. Duh. Antarctic is growing even faster.  The polar bears population is the highest ever recorded.

   No need to complain. Nature can fix mans governmental mistakes.  5 years max to return the state to soil fertility.