Tropical systems are so rare in California because cold ocean currents acts sort of like a shield, weakening storms as they approach. That protection is diminishing.
Tropical systems are so rare in Southern California because a cold ocean current acts sort of like a shield, weakening storms as they approach. But, as the Pacific Ocean is warming -- along with all of our oceans from the effects of human-caused climate change -- that protection is weakening.
"You never want to be in a situation where you're telling the public, 'this only happens every 100 years, we weren't ready for it,'" said Jamie Rhome of the."And with the changing climate, we wanted to be sure that if there were an increase in the frequency of storms impacting Southern California, we were positioned well in advance of that threat."
The UN's climate change report says the state of the world is on "thin ice," but humanity still has a change to turn things around. NBC 6's Alyssa Hyman reports "Hurricanes are fueled by warm water, and the oceans now store about 90% of the extra heat humans have added to the planet because of greenhouse gases," said Andrew Pershing of Climate Central."And so that warm ocean water fuels bigger storms, and it makes it more likely storms will undergo rapid intensification. So from a tropical storm to a powerful hurricane in a very short period of time.
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