California and climate change: Here's what to expect

California’s fourth, and most recent, climate assessment report reflects years of increasingly frequent and threatening natural disasters that have plagued the nation’s most populous state. In coming decades, they’re expected to become even more severe.

Active flame front of the 2007 Zaca Fire.

The state in its 2007 forecast had envisioned a tough 10 years ahead. That was the year the Witch Fire in San Diego County, which raged from October 21 to November 6, consumed nearly 200,000 acres, destroying 1,650 structures and killing one person. I remember that one distinctly: My wife and I had just returned from our honeymoon in Hawaii, and we evacuated our suburban neighborhood as thick brown clouds of smoke darkened the skies above.

The Zaca Fire in Santa Barbara County, which burned from that previous July 4 to September 4, was actually the biggest wildfire of 2007 at more than 240,000 acres. It consumed mostly rural land and destroyed just one building. At the time, it was the second largest fire in California history, behind San Diego County’s Cedar Fire in 2003, on which I reported as science writer with The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Read the story from Yale Climate Conections by Bruce Lieberman - “California and climate change: Here's what to expect.”