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The ENSO cycle has a huge effect on rainfall and snowfall patterns in California, especially during the winter and spring seasons. During the El Niño phase, the jet stream is located south through California, allowing for warmer temperatures and more heavy rains to occur, particularly in the southern portions of the state.
Hot temperatures in spring and early summer dried out the grasses and brush brought on by two years of heavy rain and snow, Swain said. That means dry, low-elevation grasses are ripe to burn with ...
Summer monsoon thunderstorms moving westward across Greater Los Angeles, bringing heavy rain, strong winds, and intense lightning. Summers are warm to hot, and nearly completely dry. The summer temperature pattern usually begins in late June or early July, and lasts through September or October, although it may start as early as late May.
In chaparral communities in Southern California, for example, some plants have leaves coated in flammable oils that encourage an intense fire. [20] This heat causes their fire-activated seeds to germinate (an example of dormancy) and the young plants can then capitalize on the lack of competition in a burnt landscape.
A study conducted in 2019 found that from 1972 to 2018, California saw a fivefold increase in the area burned in any given year, and an eightfold increase in the area burned by summer fires. [22] Another study estimated that the area burned between 1984 and 2015 could have been half of what it was without human-caused climate change. [27]
World leaders are meeting in Paris this month in what amounts to a last-ditch effort to avert the worst ravages of climate change. Climatologists now say that the best case scenario — assuming immediate and dramatic emissions curbs — is that planetary surface temperatures will increase by at least 2 degrees Celsius in the coming decades.
Nitrogen deposition from air pollutants and increased mineralization from higher temperatures can increase plant productivity, but increases are often among a discount in biodiversity as faster-growing plants outcompete others. A study of a California grassland found that global change may speed reductions in diversity and forb species are most ...
Temperatures were 1.5 degrees warmer than pre-industrial times for a record 16 days this month, but the Paris climate accord aims to keep the 20- or 30-year global temperature average to 1.5 ...