Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California

Daniel L. Swain (), Baird Langenbrunner, J. David Neelin and Alex Hall
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Daniel L. Swain: University of California, Los Angeles
Baird Langenbrunner: University of California, Los Angeles
J. David Neelin: University of California, Los Angeles
Alex Hall: University of California, Los Angeles

Nature Climate Change, 2018, vol. 8, issue 5, 427-433

Abstract: Abstract Mediterranean climate regimes are particularly susceptible to rapid shifts between drought and flood—of which, California’s rapid transition from record multi-year dryness between 2012 and 2016 to extreme wetness during the 2016–2017 winter provides a dramatic example. Projected future changes in such dry-to-wet events, however, remain inadequately quantified, which we investigate here using the Community Earth System Model Large Ensemble of climate model simulations. Anthropogenic forcing is found to yield large twenty-first-century increases in the frequency of wet extremes, including a more than threefold increase in sub-seasonal events comparable to California’s ‘Great Flood of 1862’. Smaller but statistically robust increases in dry extremes are also apparent. As a consequence, a 25% to 100% increase in extreme dry-to-wet precipitation events is projected, despite only modest changes in mean precipitation. Such hydrological cycle intensification would seriously challenge California’s existing water storage, conveyance and flood control infrastructure.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41558-018-0140-y

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