Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory have issued a new report predicting that at the current rate of warming, melting snowpack will no longer be a reliable source of one-third of California’s water needs.
The study, published this month in a geophysics science journal, predicts that at the current rate of warming, runoff will drop by 54 percent in the next 20 to 40 years and 79 percent in the next 60 to 80 years.
Besides the potential for water rationing, climate change will increase the chance of flooding as more precipitation falls as rain. It will also change the state’s reservoir system is managed.
