California Projected to Get Wetter Through This Century

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UC Riverside researchers analyze 38 climate models and project California will get on average 12 percent more precipitation through 2100.

Under business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, climate models predict California will get warmer during the rest of the century and most also predict the state will get drier.

But, new research, published today in the journal Nature Communications, predicts that California will actually get wetter. The scientists from the University of California, Riverside predict the state will get an average of 12 percent more precipitation through the end of this century, compared to the last 20 years of last century.

The researchers found different rates of precipitation increase for northern, central and southern California. Northern California, which they define as starting just north of Santa Rosa, would increase 14.1 percent. Central California, which starts just south of San Luis Opispo, would go up 15.2 percent. Southern California would actually decrease 3.3 percent.

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