But the powerful atmospheric river - worrisome enough on its own - is being supercharged by climate change and El Niño, which together are warming ocean waters, upping the odds of significant downpours and offering a preview of the state's future in a warming world, experts say.
As ocean temperatures warm, and as atmospheric temperatures warm, those rates of evaporation of water vapor into the lower atmosphere are going to increase quite quickly," Swain said during a briefing Friday. "A few degrees of warming of nearshore and offshore water temperatures means that there's more moisture in that lower atmosphere."
"It's a combination of El Niño and global warming as to why the oceans are so warm over such a broad region," Swain said. "It's not 100% clear exactly the extent to which each is a relevant player, but they're both significant. The long-term trend, of course, is mainly because of climate change and the warming of the oceans associated with that."
[
add
]
[
|
|
...
]