Pirate's Cove

This keeps happening. There’s some sort of storm, the Usual Cult Members blame it on ‘climate change’, and then the media comes along to say “it’s complicated” afterwards

Are California’s storms normal, or is climate change making them worse? What experts say.

California faces a “parade of storms” over the next several weeks, on top of recent deluges that have killed at least 12 people, caused flooding, knocked out power and forced evacuations and school closures up and down the coast.

Given the Mediterranean climate of the state’s coastal areas, wet winters and dry summers are a natural part of California’s weather patterns going back millennia.

But are this year’s storms something out of the ordinary, and something that can be attributed to climate change? In a state home to almost 40 million people with a $3.6 trillion economy – on track to be the fourth biggest in the world – the weather matters.

Here’s what to know. (snip)

Are California’s storms normal?

California’s coastal climate is naturally marked by wet winters and dry summers but that pattern contains a large amount of variability. The historical record as well as paleoclimatological studies looking over millennia show periods of severe drought and periods of extreme wetness.

So, yeah, normal.

What does climate change have to do with the California storms?

It’s too soon to say if this spate of winter storms is part of a larger climate change-driven shift or were just the luck of the draw. However, climate scientists are clear that overall, the state’s weather is becoming more variable and more intense, which is very much a long-predicted effect of global warming.

The natural variability of the state’s climate has masked the increases, said Swain.

Climate scientists in California are calling this “precipitation whiplash,” where when it rains, the rains are heavier and more catastrophic at the same time that droughts can become longer and more intense.

That’s because the overall heating of the atmosphere creates greater variability. Since the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, the world’s temperature has already increased by about 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit, with more increases coming.

It’s too soon to say, but, they’ll blame it on anthropogenic global warming. Surprise! Even though the records, such as they are, show extremes in the past.