Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Warming climate, low Sierra snowpack, evaporating runoff extend California drought
Skiers and snowboarders pray for snow so they can shred the slopes. Climatologists and hydrologists have an entirely different and more critical reason to cross their fingers for the “white gold.” The West’s historic drought has many impacts, including water shortages, more severe wildfire seasons and unprecedented heat waves, to name a few. Intense droughts are a result of many factors, one of which scientists have recently begun to analyze with more scrutiny: snow drought.
Related articles:
- Los Angeles Times: Alarmingly low rain levels prime California for fire danger in summer, fall
- Circle of Blue: Constant, Compounding Disasters Are Exhausting Emergency Response
- National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service: Earth from Orbit - Record Heat and Drought is Raising Wildfire Risk
- Business Insider: Images from space show California’s forests and lakes drying out in a record mega-drought
Business Insider: Photos show the ‘bathtub ring’ along a parched Los Angeles reservoir as California’s drought grows more dire