In a Warming California, a Future of More Fire

“This is looking like the type of year that might occur more often in the future,” said A. Park Williams, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

Severe wildfire seasons like the one that has devastated California this fall may occur more frequently because of climate change, scientists say.

A Warming California, a Future of More Fire.

The reason is an expected impact of climate change in California: increasing year-to-year variability in temperature and precipitation that will create greater contrast between drought years and wet years. And that can lead to much greater fire risk.

That contrast has occurred this decade in the state, where years of drought were followed last winter by very wet weather that led to a bumper crop of grasses and other vegetation.

Read the story by Henry Fountain in The New York Times - “In a Warming California, a Future of More Fire.”

Snowy Hydro preparing for El Nino dry

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nowy Hydro is preparing for an El Nino dry that will extend well into 2016 by slashing power generation as it harbours its water reserves to avoid prospective shortages it encountered in the previous big dry a decade ago.

"Our forecasts are telling us the El Nino will extend well into next autumn and more recently it has been extended – month by month – into winter," Snowy Hydro managing director Paul Broad said.

For keen skiers, a prolonged lack of precipitation may signal a poor start to the 2016 winter season but, for large power users the prospect of unseasonably low rainfall over the next six months or so, it may point to increased volatility along with higher wholesale power prices heading into 2016.

Read The Age story by Brian Robins - “Forecast El Nino dry forces Snowy Hydro to harbour water”.