Hope you’ll read my latest L.A. Times column/news roundup and let me know what you think! Here’s how it starts:
>You know how oil and gas pollution is supposed to bring not only hotter heat waves, drier droughts and bigger wildfires, but also more intense storms? Well, that’s what we’re experiencing in Los Angeles and across California this week, as an atmospheric river wallops the state with record rainfall, dangerous floods, major mudslides and power outages — with more to come.
>
>Although it’s too soon to say exactly how much responsibility global warming bears for the storm — let’s hope scientists conduct an attribution study before too long — this is exactly the kind of thing climate researchers have long predicted.
>
>As The Times’ Grace Toohey wrote last week, scientists have found that because of rising temperatures, a catastrophic storm “is more likely to happen and to be more intense, with a 2% chance of occurring in any given year, as opposed to a 1% likelihood pre-global warming.” Hot ocean waters — heated in large part by fossil fuels — are “moistening the atmospheric river storms as they approach California, making them more likely to deliver heavy rainfall,” Grace and Hayley Smith explained a few days later.
>
>And lest you think these intense downpours will at least solve California’s drought problem? Alas, no. As Ian James reports, the warmer storms of the climate change era are offering more rain and less snow — meaning less mountain snowpack gradually melting and flowing into our canals and reservoirs, the historic pattern around which the state’s water system was built.
>
>It’s not great, folks.
>
>It’s also not too late to do something about it, if we could just stop arguing and start prioritizing.
Again, would love if you could read the whole thing and let me know what you think. You can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletter in your inbox twice a week: [latimes.com/boilingpoint](https://latimes.com/boilingpoint)
1 comment
Hope you’ll read my latest L.A. Times column/news roundup and let me know what you think! Here’s how it starts:
>You know how oil and gas pollution is supposed to bring not only hotter heat waves, drier droughts and bigger wildfires, but also more intense storms? Well, that’s what we’re experiencing in Los Angeles and across California this week, as an atmospheric river wallops the state with record rainfall, dangerous floods, major mudslides and power outages — with more to come.
>
>Although it’s too soon to say exactly how much responsibility global warming bears for the storm — let’s hope scientists conduct an attribution study before too long — this is exactly the kind of thing climate researchers have long predicted.
>
>As The Times’ Grace Toohey wrote last week, scientists have found that because of rising temperatures, a catastrophic storm “is more likely to happen and to be more intense, with a 2% chance of occurring in any given year, as opposed to a 1% likelihood pre-global warming.” Hot ocean waters — heated in large part by fossil fuels — are “moistening the atmospheric river storms as they approach California, making them more likely to deliver heavy rainfall,” Grace and Hayley Smith explained a few days later.
>
>And lest you think these intense downpours will at least solve California’s drought problem? Alas, no. As Ian James reports, the warmer storms of the climate change era are offering more rain and less snow — meaning less mountain snowpack gradually melting and flowing into our canals and reservoirs, the historic pattern around which the state’s water system was built.
>
>It’s not great, folks.
>
>It’s also not too late to do something about it, if we could just stop arguing and start prioritizing.
Again, would love if you could read the whole thing and let me know what you think. You can sign up to get my Boiling Point newsletter in your inbox twice a week: [latimes.com/boilingpoint](https://latimes.com/boilingpoint)