Lead image Credit; CAL Fire
And This Used to be the Rainy Season…
Southern California is a high desert. Rainfall is tricky even in the best of times. In a world where the climate has warmed by 2.7°F in just over 100 years as shown by NOAA data, the variability of rain has increased meaning more frequent drought or too much rain at once.
The Santa Ana winds are notorious and when they occur with significant drought conditions, they set a lethal mix which if ignited result in firestorms that are almost unimaginable.
While the climate has been warming fast since 1970, Californias population has doubled from 20M to 40M creating demand to develop in areas that are prone to fires anyway and in areas where fire-prone shrub vegetation increases risks especially in the many canyons that act as a wind amplifier.
A MAXAR satellite image of an L.A. neighborhood engulfed in flames. (Credit: Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)
It seems people want to live in areas of terrific views in beautiful weather that most of the time is ideal. This is understandable but that pressure from population growth and a warming climate that creates super dry long-lasting conditions makes a lethal mix even more explosive.
This is not usually fire season in California, but drought has set the stage for what is happening now with thousands of homes and business burnt to a crisp and scores of dead and injured. LA has only had .18 inches of rain in the last 4 months compared to its normal rainfall of over 4 inches during that time. Yet for the two years proceeding this drought, copious rainfall created even more growth of very volatile grasses and scrub vegetation that dried out during the last months and then with the Santa Ana, ignited in a hell storm of fire.
Normally the fire season is over by this time of winter.
We are now able to determine the role of climate warming in situations like the present one in LA. Attribution science, which we talk about in the CAC Florida Climate Conference each year at USF-SM in Sarasota, has shown that this rapid swing from too much to too little rain has increased from 30% to 60% worldwide due to a warming climate.
While fires in California are part of the scene, they are getting worse from climate warming and a crush of population that together have resulted in this sad situation. This is just one more reason we need Climate Adaptation to lower the risk. If we don’t adapt though better practices in zoning, land management, regulation etc., the pace of severe climate enhanced events will continue to increase with global temperatures.
While Sarasota experienced 3 hurricanes in 65 days’ time last summer, these fires show there really isn’t anywhere to hide.
Early estimates of the total damage and economic loss due to the Los Angeles wildfires are between $135 billion and $150 billion, according to reported Accuweather extimates.
Bob Bunting is the CEO of the Sarasota based Climate Adaptation Center