Title: Climate Change and the California Drought | At the Edge | US News
Headings: Climate Change Caused California Drought
Climate Change Caused California Drought
The science behind the drought is unquestionable.

Content: What we are seeing now is fundamentally different from previous mega-droughts, because they were driven by precipitation. Now, thanks to higher temperatures driven by climate change, droughts are increasingly temperature-driven, she said in 2014. A recent paleoclimate study found that, while precipitation levels throughout the drought were extremely low, it was largely the remarkable, record-high temperatures that made this drought stand out as the worst to hit the area in 1,200 years. Reflecting this trend, 2014 was the warmest year on record in California by an unprecedented margin. Warming temperatures have been behind a significant increase in drought in the state during the past 100 years. New research shows how warmer baseline conditions, driven by climate change, have increased the frequency and severity of drought conditions in California, increasing the chance that low rainfall years will produce drought. A recent risk analysis found that the probability of concurrent droughts and heat waves leading to extreme events like the California drought is much higher than previously estimated due to global warming. Changing weather patterns due to global warming may have contributed to the reduced precipitation. In 2013 and 2014, a high-pressure zone formed over the Pacific Ocean, diverting precipitation toward Alaska (where the record warmth and precipitation caused avalanches ). While these zones are common, they normally quickly change position.