Massive California Drought Linked to Climate Change

It turns out that California's drought may be due to climate change. Scientists have found that the extreme atmospheric conditions over California are more likely to occur under today's global warming conditions than in the climate that existed before the influx of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Currently, the exceptional drought crippling California is one of the worst in state history. Combined with warm temperatures and stagnant air conditions, the weather has triggered a dangerous increase in wildfires and air pollution incidents. In fact, the water shorter may result in direct and indirect agricultural losses of about $2.2 billion in 2014 alone.

In order to learn a bit more about what might be causing California's drought and if it could be linked to climate change, the researchers used a combination of computer simulations and statistical techniques. They found that a region of high atmospheric pressure hovering over the Pacific Ocean diverted storms away from California and was much more likely to form in the presence of modern greenhouse gas concentrations. In other words, climate change and gas emissions could be contributing to California's drought.

"Our research finds that extreme atmospheric high pressure in this region-which is strongly linked to unusually low precipitation in California-is much more likely to occur today than prior to the human emission of greenhouse gases that began during the Industrial revolution in the 1800s," said Noah Diffenbaugh, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The findings reveal that the drought may just be caused by an influx of greenhouse gases.

"In using these advanced statistical techniques to combine climate observations with model simlations, we've been able to better understand the ongoing drought in California," said Diffenbaugh. "This isn't a projection of 100 years in the future. This is an event that is more extreme than any in the observed record, and our research suggests that global warming is playing a role right now."

The findings are published in the journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.