Atmospheric Rivers Fuel Most Western U.S. Flooding. Climate Change Will Make Them Worse.

Giant streams of moist air that veer off from the tropics are responsible for most of the flooding in the Western United States, and scientists say these atmospheric rivers will become more intense as the planet warms. A new study is providing some insight into what that could mean, finding that just 10 intense atmospheric river events caused nearly half the flood damage in the West over the past four decades, adding up to billions of dollars.