[[link removed]]

THE ‘WEATHER WHIPLASH’ FUELING THE LOS ANGELES FIRES IS BECOMING
MORE COMMON  
[[link removed]]


 

Kate Yoder
January 9, 2025
Grist
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Dramatic swings between heavy rain and drought are increasing
exponentially, according to new research. Since then, bone-dry
conditions have set the stage for the catastrophic wildfires now
descending upon the metropolis from multiple directions. _

Water is dropped by helicopter on the burning Sunset Fire in the
Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles on January 8., Photo: Ethan
Swope/AP // CNN

 

It’s supposed to be the rainy season in Southern California, but the
last time Los Angeles measured more than a tenth-inch of rain
[[link removed]] was
eight months ago, after the city logged one of the soggiest periods
in its recorded history
[[link removed]].
Since then, bone-dry conditions have set the stage for the
catastrophic wildfires now descending upon the metropolis from
multiple directions.

This quick cycling between very wet and very dry periods — one
example of what scientists have come to call “weather whiplash
[[link removed]]”
— creates prime conditions for wildfires: The rain encourages an
abundance of brush and grass, and once all that vegetation dries out,
it only takes a spark and a gust of wind to fuel a deadly fire.
That’s what happened in Los Angeles County this week, when a fierce
windstorm fueled the Palisades and Eaton fires, which as of Wednesday
night had killed at least five people, destroyed more than 2,000
buildings, and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate their
homes.

The kind of weather whiplash that fueled the fires is only becoming
more common, and not just in the United States. A new analysis in the
peer-reviewed academic journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment has
found that rapid shifts between heavy rain and drought (and vice
versa) are becoming more intense — and the trend is unfolding faster
than climate models have projected. Across the world’s land area,
weather whiplash within three-month periods has increased by 31 to 66
percent since the mid-20th century, according to the research. That
means that most places around the world find themselves getting both
wetter _and_ drier in quick succession, a dangerous combination that
can lead to landslides
[[link removed]], crop
losses
[[link removed]],
and even the spread of diseases
[[link removed]].

“The volatility of wet and dry extremes is this sort of emerging
signature of climate change,” said Daniel Swain, a co-author of the
paper and a climate scientist at the University of California, Los
Angeles. “This year, unfortunately, I couldn’t have asked for a
better poster child for this process than Southern California.”

Swain, along with researchers across the United States and in
Switzerland, analyzed a flurry of recent research on what they refer
to as “hydroclimate volatility” and developed a way to measure how
it might get worse in the future. They found that the swings between
very wet and very dry weather are rising exponentially for each
passing fraction of a degree the globe warms.

“I do think this is a big part of the reason why it feels like
climate change has accelerated,” Swain said.

To understand why wet and dry periods are becoming more extreme, it
can help to think of the atmosphere as a kitchen sponge that’s
becoming more and more absorbent as it warms. When you wring out this
more powerful sponge, it sends down heavier rains than before. On the
other hand, when the sponge dries out, it has even more capacity to
suck up moisture from the soil and plants below, parching the
landscape and turning it into tinder. The paper’s authors coin a new
phrase for this phenomenon: the “expanding atmospheric sponge
effect.” Jim Stagge, who runs the Hydrologic Extremes Research
Laboratory at The Ohio State University and was not involved in the
new research, called it “a clever analogy” and said the paper’s
evidence was generally convincing.

The volatile swings between wet and dry patterns aren’t unfolding
uniformly across the world. The Mediterranean, for example, is getting
less rain on average, whereas the eastern United States is getting
distinctly wetter, according to Swain. While the expanding atmospheric
sponge effect is happening everywhere, changes in regional weather
patterns are either countering some of its effects or else amplifying
them. The regions experiencing the biggest whiplash include a broad
swath of land from northern Africa through the Arabian Peninsula and
into South Asia, as well as high latitudes in Canada and Eurasia, the
research found.

Adapting to a future that’s both wetter _and_ drier presents a
unique social challenge. For instance, it would be easy to get tunnel
vision and focus on preparing for water scarcity, only to accidentally
make a town more vulnerable to flooding in the process, Swain pointed
out. Flexibility is key to successful interventions, according to the
new paper. Some options include expanding natural floodplains
[[link removed]] and
removing impermeable pavement from cities — approaches that allow
the soil to absorb more rainfall, lessening flood risk, and at the
same time stockpiling water underground for future use.

While extreme weather like that highlighted in the new research gets
the most attention, it’s also worth noting what the world is
seeing _less_ of as the climate changes: the moderate weather of the
past. Light rain, the study observes, is becoming less common nearly
everywhere.

“When it rains, it pours,” Swain said. “Literally.”

_[KATE YODER is a Senior Staff Writer at Grist.]_

* Los Angels Fires
[[link removed]]
* wildfires
[[link removed]]
* Climate Catastrophe
[[link removed]]
* Climate Change
[[link removed]]
* Climate Crisis
[[link removed]]
* Global warming
[[link removed]]
* Climate Deniers
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]