Climate change is increasing the risk of a California megaflood

Huang, Xingying; Swain, Daniel L.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abq0995

Cited by 78 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Ultimately, a combination of the increased moisture-holding capacity of the atmosphere forced by WMGHGs, decreased masking by anthropogenic aerosols, and an amplification of natural circulation variability from large-scale warming points toward dramatic increases in flood risk in the near future. As described in [56], these increases will have dire consequences for human society.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenic aerosols mask increases in US rainfall by greenhouse gases

Risser

Collins

Wehner

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Daily rainfall accumulations are a critical component of the global water cycle, and comprehensive understanding of human-induced changes to rainfall is essential for water resource management and infrastructure design. Detection and attribution methods reveal cause and effect relationships between anthropogenic forcings and changes in daily precipitation by comparing observed changes with those from climate models. However, at regional scales, existing studies are unable to conclusively identify human influence on precipitation. Here we show that anthropogenic aerosol and greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant drivers of precipitation change over the United States and, by simultaneously accounting for both agents, we resolve outstanding uncertainties regarding the human influence on regional precipitation. Greenhouse gas emissions increase mean and extreme precipitation from rain gauge measurements across all seasons. Aerosol emissions offset these increases in the winter and spring but appear to enhance rainfall during the summer and fall. Our results show that conflicting literature on trends in precipitation over the historical record can be explained by equal and opposite aerosol and greenhouse gas signals. At the scale of the United States, individual climate models reproduce observed changes due to anthropogenic forcing but cannot confidently determine whether these emissions sources increase or decrease rainfall.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenic aerosols mask increases in US rainfall by greenhouse gases

Risser

Collins

Wehner

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Many studies have applied and systematically examined simulations of CESM1, showing that CESM demonstrates high skill in reproducing the observed global precipitation patterns (e.g., intensity, frequency) and related global teleconnections (Hurrell et al., 2013; Marsh et al., 2013; Neale et al., 2008; Teng & Branstator, 2017; Wang et al., 2013). Of particular relevance here is its wide use for a robust understanding of physical and statistical changes in droughts and floods over different parts of the world (e.g., Herrera et al., 2020; Huang & Swain, 2022; Li et al., 2021; Mishra & Aadhar, 2021; Yoon et al., 2018). In sum, among single‐model large ensembles, CESM‐LENS offers one of the most adequate representations of the observed historical interannual variability, forced changes, extreme temperature and precipitation.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detectable Increase in Global Land Areas Susceptible to Precipitation Reversals Under the RCP8.5 Scenario

Cheng

Liu

2022

Earth's Future

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Of rising concern is the consecutive occurrence of contrasting precipitation extremes such as droughts followed by severe floods, which tips a precarious balance with lasting impacts on human and natural systems. However, it is not clear how the risk of such precipitation reversals may change over time at the global scale. Using precipitation data from the Community Earth System Model Version 1 (CESM1) Large Ensemble Simulations (LENS), we examined changes in the likelihood and spatial distribution of low‐intensity dry‐to‐wet fluctuations and more severe shifts from meteorological droughts to pluvials over global land areas via a conditional statistical framework. Our analysis of CESM1‐LENS leads to the conclusion that the worst‐case climate change scenario, that is, RCP8.5 can increase the percent of global land areas susceptible to both low‐intensity and more severe precipitation reversals by the end of the twenty‐first century, while inducing disproportionate impacts at regional scales depending on the severity of precipitation reversals. Particularly, we find 13.6% of global land areas may be depressed by interannual dry‐to‐wet events with a transition probability of greater than 0.5 in the twenty‐first century, quintupling the figure in the past century. The increase in the susceptible global land areas further indicates that new local hotspots with low‐frequency drought‐pluvial seesaws are more likely to emerge under the effects of enhancing anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Collectively, the study is expected to provide useful information for policy makers and infrastructure operators to prioritize actions that affect water resource objectives of flood control, drought mitigation, and water quality protection.

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“…Yosemite toads are likely susceptible to further increases in the variability of precipitation in the Sierra Nevada as well. Although these toads are adapted to periodic, perhaps even frequent, recruitment failure (Morton and Pereyra, 2010;Liang et al, 2017;Sadinski et al, 2020), it is unclear whether the longevity of adult toads will enable persistence of the toads through megadroughts or severe winters associated with megafloods (Ault et al, 2016;Huang and Swain, 2022). A better understanding of the demography of Yosemite toads, especially the relationship between weather variables and adult survival and recruitment, would be necessary to evaluate the probability of this species persisting in a changing climate.…”

Section: Data Availability Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Already in the early 21st Century, the Sierra Nevada has experienced some of the wettest and driest years on record, and the southwestern United States is currently in the midst of a multi-year "megadrought" (Williams et al, 2022). The predicted increase in the frequency and severity of droughts and floods (Huang and Swain, 2022) will likely have a large influence on many taxa, especially aquatic organisms or those that require surface waters for reproduction, like amphibians.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sierra Nevada amphibians demonstrate stable occupancy despite precipitation volatility in the early 21st Century

Halstead

Kleeman²,

Rose³

et al. 2023

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Climate can have a strong influence on species distributions, and amphibians with different life histories might be affected by annual variability in precipitation in different ways. The Sierra Nevada of California, United States, experienced some of the driest and wettest years on record in the early 21st Century, with variability in annual precipitation predicted to increase with climate change. We examined the relationship between adult occupancy dynamics of three high elevation anurans and site and annual variation in measures of winter severity, summer wetness, and cumulative drought. We further evaluated how these weather conditions affected the probability that each species would reproduce, conditional on their occurrence at a site. We found that although different aspects of weather affected the occupancy dynamics of each species differently, adult occupancy probabilities were generally stable throughout our 15-year study period. The probability of reproduction, although slightly more variable than adult occupancy, was similarly stable throughout the study. Although occurrence of the three species was resilient to recent extremes in precipitation, more detailed demographic study would inform the extent to which amphibian populations will remain resilient to increasing severity, duration, and frequency of drought and flood cycles.

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Climate change is increasing the risk of a California megaflood

Cited by 78 publications

References 65 publications

Anthropogenic aerosols mask increases in US rainfall by greenhouse gases

Anthropogenic aerosols mask increases in US rainfall by greenhouse gases

Detectable Increase in Global Land Areas Susceptible to Precipitation Reversals Under the RCP8.5 Scenario

Sierra Nevada amphibians demonstrate stable occupancy despite precipitation volatility in the early 21st Century

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