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California could be hit with significantly more dangerous and more frequent droughts in the near future as changes in weather patterns triggered by global warming block rainfall from reaching the state, according to new research led by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The latest study adds a worrying dimension to the challenge California is already facing in adapting to climate change, and shifts focus to melting polar ice that only recently has been discovered to have such a direct, potentially dramatic impact on the West Coast.

Polar bears aren’t the only ones in trouble from the Arctic’s melting ice. A new study by Bay Area scientists concludes that Californians could face reduced rainfall — and worse droughts — by the continuing loss of sea ice. Their computer analyses show a 10 to 15 percent average decrease in California’s rainfall in the coming decades. The culprit, scientists now believe, is a link between the melting ice and the buildup of massive high pressure systems that park off the California coast and block Pacific storms.

Throughout California, access to water and how it is distributed is a perennial issue. Water conflicts are often nuanced and take on a life of their own. In some cases, a local conflict can have statewide implications — the City of Marina, a small city along the shores of Monterey Bay, finds itself in such a conflict. In 2009, the California State Water Resources Control Board ordered the private, for-profit California American Water Company to end its illegal water diversions from the Carmel River.

Biologists assumed baby winter-run Chinook salmon hung out in the Sacramento River where they hatched until they grew large enough to make the trip downstream to the Pacific Ocean. A recently released scientific study challenges that assumption – and may have implications in how fisheries agencies manage Sacramento Valley waterways to protect the critically endangered fish.

Now that summer is over and rain has returned to California, it appears that the dramatic 2017 fire season is finally behind us. The effects of fire season can linger, however, with the possibilities of erosion and polluted runoff from burned areas. Napa County has even issued suggestions for how to protect waterways in burned landscapes. Not all news is bad when it comes to the interactions between fire and water, however. These two seemingly opposite elements can actually work in tandem under the right circumstances, to the benefit of people as well as the environment.