California’s destructive fire years have been an unfortunate weather model, after an extra wet about 18 months, and then due to dry witchcraft. The wet duration pushed the grass and brush growth, and then the lack of rain dried, to turn on the fire and spread quickly.
“It was a classic example of dry dry land,” Daniel Swain, California University Climate Scientist, Los Angeles. And such rumors can be more common. “With climate change, there is no drier and drier things. There is also a tendency to achieve greater variability, wider swing between the wet and dry,” Swain said.
Heating climate scientists call “expanding large atmosphere sponge” effect. The warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air, so the greater the atmosphere is achieved. If the water is available, the atmosphere will absorb more, and when you write the sponge, you get more precipitation. But if there is no absorbing water, thirsty air has greater moisture from the landscape, from water bodies, surfaces and plants, drying everything.
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Palmer Hydrological Drought Index
This measurement uses the reservoir and groundwater levels to measure drought. Below each point in the table below represents a month’s drought level in a region of California.
Wesley grubbs; Source: National Centers of the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for environmental information (data)
