Science Source
California Getting Wetter to the North, Drier to the South: Natural Variability or Climate Change?
- States that current climate change projections anticipate that global warming trends will lead to changes in the distribution and intensity of precipitation at a global level
- States that few studies have corroborated these model-based results using historical precipitation records at a regional level, especially in California
- Analyzes 14 long-term precipitation records representing multiple climates throughout the state
- Finds northern and central regions increasing in precipitation while southern regions are drying
- Finds that winter precipitation is increasing in all regions, while other seasons show mixed results
- Finds that rain intensity has not changed since the 1920s
- Finds that while Sacramento shows over 3 more days of rain per year, Los Angeles has almost 4 less days per year in the last century
- Finds that both the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) greatly influence the California precipitation record
- Concludes that the climate change signal in the precipitation records remains unclear as annual variability overwhelms the precipitation trends
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