ClimaTea Journal Club: Contribution of anthropogenic warming to California drought

This week Katie Dagon will be presenting Williams et al. (2015) "Contribution of anthropogenic warming to California drought during 2012–2014." (attached) Katie says about the paper:

"The ongoing California drought is a much-discussed topic both in the news and recent scientific literature (1). Of particular interest is whether the drought has been influenced by climate change. To that end, I will lead a discussion exploring the causes of the California drought and its connection to anthropogenic climate change. The anthropogenic signature on the drought is discussed in Williams et al. (2015). The authors conclude that while natural variability provides the dominate cause, anthropogenic warming is responsible for 5-18% of the drought anomaly in 2014, and 8-27% in 2012-2014. We will discuss their methods and results, and how they compare to similar studies (e.g, (2)). If time permits, we can also discuss how the current El Niño is projected to affect the drought (3)."