![]() The ARkStorm 2.0 scenarioĪ 2011 government study introduced the “ARkStorm” scenario, finding that a megaflood in California could swamp the state’s Central Valley and cause more than $1 trillion in damage.Ī 2022 study by Xinging Huang and Daniel Swain updates that work in a scenario called “ARkStorm 2.0,” using data and computer modeling advances not available in 2011. Here, in Part Three, we’ll look at the increasing future threat of a California megaflood in a warming climate. Part Two looked at how California is preparing its dams for future great floods. Part One examined the results of a 2011 study introducing the potential impacts of a scenario, known as “ARkStorm,” which would be a repeat of California’s Great Flood of 1861-62 - though the study did not take climate change into account. This is the third part of a three-part series on California’s vulnerability to a megaflood. ![]() The parade of West Coast storms over the last ten days. Sign up for our newsletters and never miss a story. The climate is changing, and our journalists are here to help you make sense of it. ![]() In particular, a 2022 study found that, relative to a century ago, climate change has already doubled the risk of a present-day megastorm, and more than tripled the risk of a trillion-dollar megaflood of the type that could swamp the Central Valley. And a future warmer climate will likely significantly increase the risk of even more extreme floods. The Golden State has a long history of cataclysmic floods, which have occurred about every 200 to 400 years - most recently in the Great Flood of 1861-62. On a statewide basis, about 11 inches of rain fell 20 deaths were blamed on the weather, with damages estimated at over $1 billion.īut the storm damages were a pale shadow of the havoc a true California megaflood would wreak. A sequence of nine atmospheric rivers hammered California during a three-week period in January 2023, bringing over 700 landslides, power outages affecting more than 500,000 people, and heavy rains that triggered flooding and levee breaches.
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