Early this year, California experienced severe fires following an unusually wet 18-month period which suddenly transitioned to extreme dryness. This wet-to-dry shift created ideal conditions for fires, marking a trend attributed to climate change. Daniel Swain, a climate scientist, emphasizes that such variability is becoming more common. The atmospheric sponge effect describes how warmer air, capable of holding more moisture, leads to intensified precipitation when water is available, but also aggressively dries out landscapes when it isn't, contributing to drought conditions.
With climate change, it's not just that we're seeing things get drier and drier. There's also a trend toward more variability, with wider swings between wet and dry.
Warmer air can hold more water vapor than cooler air, so the atmosphere is like a kitchen sponge that gets larger.
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