Publication: Bay Area News Group

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

Synopsis: Ocean waters off South America are warming, with potential impacts for California temperatures and winter rainfall.

UCLA News: “2024 is very likely to be the warmest year on record, once again breaking all of our previous records,” Swain said. “There will be a lot of global heat that emerges out of the tropical Pacific Ocean as this subsurface warmth materializes and surfaces, and exchanges a large amount of that heat with the atmosphere.” He also said that one issue to look for is how this past wet winter will affect flood risk next year. More than a dozen atmospheric river storms filled reservoirs, ended the state’s three-year drought, and gave California the largest Sierra snowpack since 1982-83.

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