A new study says drenchings like those California has been getting since Christmas will only get wetter and nastier with climate change.
Leung used regional scale computer simulations to predict what the worst of the western winter storms will be like between 2040 and 2070 in a scenario where carbon emissions have run amok. She looked at total precipitation, how concentrated peak raining and snowing would be and the area that gets hit. All three factors grow for the West in general.
There are two types of storms that Leung said she worries about: Flash floods from intense rain concentrated over a small area and slower, larger floods that occur from rain and snow piling up over a large area. Both are bad, but the flash floods cause more damage and hurt people more, she said. When water vapor condenses it comes down as rain and snow along the edges of the storm, but heating sort of squeezes that falling precipitation in toward the middle, Leung said.
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