California Drought Climate Change - Climate change caused by humans will reportedly helped bring about the current bout of California drought, according to a Stanford University study released Monday.
The California Drought Climate Change study was published in tvhe Monday issue of the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The new analysis gathered facts from historical records, as well as computer simulations of global warming, in order to look into the role of changing temperatures during California's droughts over the last 120 years, reported the website Common Dreams.
Recent rain and snow in the West have warranted a sigh of relief from Californians, who expect the weather to alleviate the severe drought conditions worsening over the past three-plus years, according to Clean Technica.
However, people's complacency about the California Drought Climate Change relationship should not be warranted, according gto Dr. Noah Diffenbaugh and his research team from Stanford.
Two main weather conditions led to the drought - higher than average temperatures and little rain or snow. The California Drought Climate Change study shows that climate change has increased chances of the occurrence of these two main weather conditions.
Almost 98% of California is reportedly suffering from a drought, with the state now entering its fourth year. Still, there are no signs showing that this condition will end, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Led by Stanford scientist Noah Diffenbaugh, the California Drought Climate Change study found that the worst droughts in California's history occurred when conditions were both dry and warm, and that global warming has increased the probability those two weather patterns will coincide once again.
According to Diffenbaugh, having very dry years that are also very warm would not have occurred without humans.
The California Drought Climate Change study also projected that the trend of dry and warm years occurring at the same time will continue to happen.
Despite the current findings, other scientists uninvolved in the Stanford study are questioning the method of how Diffenbaugh and his team came up with the California Drought Climate Change findings, according to USA Today.
"The warming trend can only account for a small fraction of the actual warmth in California the past two winters," said Columbia University scientist Richard Seager.
He added that a drought measurement tool used by the Stanford team - the Palmer Drought Severity Index - is "flawed and unreliable" to assess the California Drought Climate Change relationship.
Seager was a co-authors of a December NOAA report saying that natural weather patterns, and not man-made global warming, were the primary cause of the drought.
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