Warming climate could see a future California flood become the world's costliest disaster, study suggestsMichael LeeA new study is offering a dire prediction for the U.S. state of California, where scientists say catastrophic flooding could become twice as likely in the future due to the effects of climate change.
Researchers from UCLA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research completed and published the results of the first part of their "ArkStorm" 2.0 study, looking into possible climate-induced flooding of a "biblical" proportion, also known as "the Other Big One" in reference to an expected major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault.
The study, published on Aug. 12 in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances, found that historical climate change has already doubled the likelihood of an extreme storm scenario, with the chance of a "megastorm" expected to increase with each additional degree of global warming this century.
The study projects that end-of-the-century storms will create between 200 and 400 per cent more runoff in the Sierra Nevada Mountains due to increased precipitation, more of which will fall as rain instead of snow.
"In the future scenario, the storm sequence is bigger in almost every respect," Daniel Swain, UCLA climate scientist and co-author of the paper, said in a press release.
"There's more rain overall, more intense rainfall on an hourly basis and stronger wind."
While droughts and wildfires tend to get a great deal of attention, Swain said Californians might be losing sight of ...
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