The winter storm that slammed California last week, the second-strongest in the past 10 years, left some areas of the state without power and caused widespread damage to crops and homes.
But despite the widespread damage, it was still the strongest in the state since record keeping began in 1976, according to the US National Climatic Data Center.
The storm also was the largest in US history, breaking the previous record of 27.5 centimetres set in December 1979.
“It’s still the second strongest winter storm on record in the US, behind only the 1981 event,” said Dan Kivlehan, a climate scientist at the US Geological Survey in Boulder, Colorado.
“And the largest snowstorm on record on the Pacific coast.
The record has been broken by a storm in the northern part of the US on January 7, 1874.”
A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that if CO2 emissions continue at current rates, the United States could be experiencing another winter storm in less than a decade.
“If we are to avoid this kind of catastrophe in the future, we will need to keep up the rate of climate change,” said Kivlhan.
“This is one of the ways we can do that.”
But some people are calling on climate change to be stopped now.
“We’re going to see some snow on the plains, we’re going.
We’re not going to stop.
That’s a fact,” said Tim O’Brien, a journalist who covers climate change for the New York Times.
“What we’re seeing is climate change leading to more snow.
And if we don’t act now, it’s going to be the snowiest winter in American history.”
O’Brian said that many of the areas hit by the storm had already experienced the effects of extreme weather before it hit.
“The weather is already starting to get worse.
We’ve already seen the effect of the drought,” he said.
“So there’s a real risk that if we do nothing, it will get worse before it gets better.”
O-Brien said that while he was not calling for a climate catastrophe, there was a need for action.
“I don’t think the weather is going to get any better unless we do something about it,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Climate change is not going away.
It is happening, it is occurring, and it is affecting us.”
