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'How tipping points happen' A compound climate disaster
The Guardian
|January 10, 2025
An exceptional mix of environmental conditions has created a firestorm without known precedent across southern California this week.
The ingredients for these infernos in the Los Angeles area, near-hurricane strength winds and drought, foretell an emerging era of compound events—simultaneous types of historic weather conditions, happening at unusual times of the year, resulting in situations that overwhelm our ability to respond.
The Palisades fire now ranks as the most destructive in Los Angeles history, with hundreds of homes and other structures destroyed. In Pacific Palisades, wealthy homeowners fled by foot after abandoning their cars in gridlock. In Pasadena, quickly advancing fire prompted evacuations.
Early estimates of the wildfires’ combined economic impact are in the tens of billions of dollars and could place them as the most damaging in US history—exceeding the 2018 Camp fire in California.
This story is from the January 10, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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