Publication: Popular Science

UCLA Expert: Daniel Swain: Assistant Researcher and Climate Specialist, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Synopsis: Water is quickly flooding back into California’s Tulare Lake Basin, engulfing towns and farms, submerging roads, and reviving a so-called phantom lake.

UCLA News: If current conditions keep up, Swain said, this may be the worst flood for the Tulare Basin yet. Flood risk will likely rise across California following an uptick in extreme precipitation events, but the Tulare Lake area is the most vulnerable. With its low elevations and proximity to the Sierra Nevadas, “[the basin] is the place where we very strongly anticipate that flood risk will increase the most in a warming climate,” Swain said. “There’s just that much water up in the mountains, it can’t go anywhere else, right? In the end, the water always wins.”

Read more at Popular Science.