Scientists had been anticipating since last summer that La Niña, the phenomenon often associated with dry and somewhat cool weather on the West Coast, would develop this winter and extend a five-year drought across the Southwest.
Environment
Feb 10, 2017
0
6
They're called "atmospheric rivers" and they can dump massive quantities of Pacific Ocean water on California, carrying it through the air from as far away as Hawaii.
Environment
Jan 10, 2017
0
20
Atmospheric rivers contributed to a mass die-off of wild Olympia oysters in north San Francisco Bay in 2011, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis and the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research ...
Ecology
Dec 13, 2016
0
458
The Arctic's frozen ground contains large stores of organic carbon that have been locked in the permafrost for thousands of years. As global temperatures rise, that permafrost is starting to melt, raising concerns about the ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 5, 2016
0
400
A new study suggests that improvements in air quality over the Potomac watershed, including the Washington, D.C., metro area, may be responsible for recent progress on water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. Scientists from ...
Environment
Jul 26, 2016
0
29
It may sound like a routine forecast, but it's not. Results from a careful modeling study conducted by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that Western North America and Canada can expect a 28 percent ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 1, 2016
0
73
A new study by NASA and several partners has found that in California's Sierra Nevada, atmospheric river storms are two-and-a-half times more likely than other types of winter storms to result in destructive "rain-on-snow" ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 3, 2016
0
11
Just last year, researchers were saying there was no end in sight for California's recent drought. During the past four years—the driest the state has been in a half-century— reservoirs and lake levels plummeted, leaves ...
Environment
Jan 15, 2016
0
138
People the world over are feeling, or soon will feel, the effects of the strongest El Niño event since 1997-98, currently unfolding in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. New satellite observations are beginning to show ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 15, 2015
0
13
A strikingly large increase in the number of atmospheric river days awaits the U.S. west coast if climate warming remains relatively unchecked. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory came to that conclusion ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 16, 2015
15
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