Weather: what are the atmospheric rivers ravaging California?

In the United States, California is affected by the phenomenon of atmospheric rivers which cause torrential rains and floods.

In Ojai (California), in the United States, a road was cut, washed away by a current. In this city, rivers form, causing landslides and landslides. California undergoes an atmospheric river. Between a mass of cold air and a mass of warm air, a warm air corridor of 100 km to 400 km is formed. In two weeks, it fell the equivalent of six months of precipitation. The houses are half submerged.

Global warming could intensify the phenomenon

This very dense tunnel of water vapor is fed by evaporation from the ocean. When it hits the colder continent, it suddenly releases all its water. This rare phenomenon could intensify with global warming. “Every time the atmosphere warms up by 1°C, it can contain 7% more water vapour,” explains Françoise Vimeux, a climatologist at the Institute for Development Research. A similar phenomenon affected Brittany in December 2022.