Fire and Floods: The Rising Intensity of Climate Whiplash

We are mounting 20th-century responses to 21st-century weather.

- Anjana Ahuja

As parts of southern California continue to burn in what could be the costliest disaster in American history, it feels odd to recall the record-breaking rainfall and snow that characterized the region's previous two winters.

But even though wildfires and floods seem like meteorological opposites, they appear to be two sides of the same climate coin. Scientists suggest the two extremes could be related through a phenomenon known as "hydroclimate whiplash," defined by volatile swings between very wet and very dry conditions with climate change intensifying this.

Heavy rainfall boosts plant growth, nurturing vegetation that turns into tinder during the longer dry season. The cycle of sudden deluge and extended drought becomes a destructive see-saw of irrigation and ignition, bringing flash floods, landslides, and wildfire. Instead of treating flood and fire as separate phenomena, we should be joining the soaked and charred dots to recognize and mitigate the dual risks of this whiplash effect. It is also more evidence, if more were needed, that limiting global temperature rise matters for a liveable future.