California's Volatile Hydroclimate: Lessons From the Paleoclimate Record

Abstract Climate change is expected to decrease mean precipitation in California, but changes hydroclimate extremes are likely have more immediate and significant impacts on California water resources, ecosystems, economy. Paleoclimate records can provide valuable baseline data for constraining natural variability improving climate projections, quantitative limited. A new study by de Wet et al. (2021) provides the first semi‐quantitative record of early Holocene central based speleothem calcium isotope (δ 44 Ca) variations, that indicates during preceding 8.2 kyr event approached or exceeded recent decades. This outlines a approach developing robust records, also highlights “whiplash” ubiquitous feature California's we must prepare for, especially given likelihood human‐caused already increasing frequency severity hydrologic extremes.