Click the link to read the article on The Los Angeles Times website (Corrine Purtill). Here’s an excerpt:
You are correct. It is, in fact, extremely unusual to be on hurricane watch in Southern California. If Hurricane Hilary continues on the trajectory forecasters are currently predicting, it will be the first tropical storm to make landfall in California since 1939, and only the second one to do so since the 19th century. If this seems like a worrying development to you, one in a string of recent climate-related disasters that seem to portend the arrival of a deeply unpleasant future, you are right about that as well. And the people who have spent careers thinking about climate change and its likely consequences, who have read the papers and reviewed the models and warned about these potential catastrophes for years — they’re worried too…
The Times spoke with several researchers and climate experts about how the recent string of record-breaking, precedent-setting events feel to them. Their comments have been lightly edited for clarity.
Daniel Swain is a UCLA climate scientist who studies how climate change affects extreme weather events.
This seemingly constant onslaught of extremes, unprecedented weather and climate events — yes, it is different. Yes, extreme weather disasters happened previously. But we really are seeing a pretty dramatic escalation. It’s gotten less coverage, but the majority of the population of the northwest territories of Canada were evacuated last night [Wednesday] because all of the major settlements are threatened by separate fires. All of them. It’s an example of how there is now so much going on that it is difficult even to digest it all. There’s just too much. It’s everything everywhere all at once when it comes to extreme climate events this year.