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(TNS) — California will get shorter bursts of more intense rainfall as the climate warms, a new study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggests.
The study, “Precipitation regime change in Western North America: The role of Atmospheric Rivers,” was published Tuesday in the journal Nature Scientific Reports. It projects that California will face greater extremes of wet and dry seasons, with rainy periods dominated by atmospheric rivers — powerful plumes of airborne moisture that drench the West Coast.
“This study basically suggests or shows that in the future, more and more of our water resources will come from these atmospheric rivers that generate precipitation differently from other storms,” said lead author Alexander Gershunov, a climate scientist at Scripps.
The study analyzed data from about 16 different climate models for the period from 1950 to 2100, he said, and concluded that as time goes on, California will see heavier precipitation in the winter, with less rainfall at other times of year.
