California drought Flashcards
What do the rings of blue oak trees provide?
A unique record of drought and wetness for California as they can live up to 500 years old in the drought scorched foothills.
What does the Griffin use to determine how unusual the severe Californian drought of the past 3 years?
Two paleoclimate reconstructions of drought and precipitation for Central and Southern California to place this current event in the context of the last millennium.
What is found in the paper?
while 3 year periods of persistent below-average soil moisture are not uncommon, the current event is the most severe drought in the last 1200 years, with single year (2014) and accumulated moisture deficits worse than any previous continuous span of dry years. Tree ring chronologies extended through the 2014 growing season reveal that precipitation during the drought has been anomalously low but not outside the range of natural variability. The current California drought
is exceptionally severe in the context of at least the last millennium and is driven by reduced though not unprecedented precipitation and record high temperatures.
