Looming threat tears homes apart along California's coastline: 'It has unraveled into a disastrous situation'

A series of storms during California's wet winters over the past two years has worsened the landslide problem for the Golden State. Winter storms that hit the California coastline are intensifying as our world warms.

What's happening?

Powerful storms pounded the West Coast in February, knocking out power for nearly 900,000 homes in California. Over 24 hours, Los Angeles received nearly a foot of rain on the UCLA campus.

"It has unraveled into a disastrous situation," Kyle Tourjé, executive vice president of Alpha Structural, a structural engineering and foundation retrofitting company serving southern California, told The Washington Post. "The situation is becoming more and more grim as each day goes on."

Storms like this have immediate consequences, but the toll they take in terms of contributing to future landslides might not be seen for months or even years. It can take that long for rainfall to percolate deep underground.

Why is the rising risk of California landslides important?

Atmospheric rivers — long, narrow regions of the atmosphere that transport water vapor aloft and fuel storms that batter the West Coast — are expected to become more intense as Earth heats up, according to a study led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.

Scientists say California's precipitation "as it becomes less frequent but preferentially stronger, will vacillate even more wildly between extremes of drought and flooding as a consequence of climate change."

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A NASA study found that "the frequency of the most intense atmospheric river storms is projected to nearly double" if we continue to warm our world at the current rate.

"Over the past 50 years, disasters caused by landslides have become 10 times more frequent," according to a study published in Nature. "And landslide risk is set to escalate, owing to two increasing trends — climate change and urbanization. Now, researchers need to assess where and to what extent such risks will rise."

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What's being done about the increasing number of landslides?

In 2023, Rancho Palos Verdes received a $23 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help fund a landslide mitigation project designed to stabilize a portion of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

The National Landslide Preparedness Act, written into law in 2021, is designed to identify and understand landslide hazards. It aims to reduce landslide losses and protect communities at risk.

Limiting harmful heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere that are exacerbating extreme weather can help reduce the rising risk of landslides. Turning away from dirty energy sources and embracing cleaner, renewable energy options will help. Switching to electric yard tools, using an induction stove, and installing a heat pump are also ways we can make a difference in our homes.

Progress has been made in disaster-risk assessments because of better remote-sensing observations of some of the factors involved with landslides, such as land cover and global rainfall.