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6.A. - Page 33 of 251 Impacts of Climate Change on Redwood City What's Already Being Experienced Climate change has already affected and will continue to affect San Mateo County. Climate change will have many different effects on society and on the natural world. Plant and animal species are adapting to changing environments by migrating to new areas. As species move, they bring diseases with them to farms and human populations. Some species become extinct due to either human -caused climate change or to human activities such as habitat destruction or toxic pollution. The region's annual maximum temperature increased 1.7°F from 1950-2005. Coastal fog, which is critical to the region's climate and ecosystems, is less frequent than ever before. Sea level has risen over 8 inches in the last century. The forceful 2015-2016 EI Nino weather pattern, which was one of the three largest in history, resulted in unprecedented outer coast beach erosion due to winter wave energy that was more than 50% greater than a typical winter. The 2012-2016 statewide drought led to the most drastic moisture shortages in the last 1,200 years, resulting in a 1 -in -500 -year low in Sierra snowpack. This drastically reduced snowpack resulted in $2.1 billion in tamw� economic losses, 21,000 jobs lost statewide in agricultural and recreational sectors, and a continuing exhaustion of groundwater sources. Future Projections t-N�sy Even if considerable efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are conducted, San Mateo County will Llikely see substantial temperature increases by 2050. By 2100, temperature rise will be dependent on the �YVy emissions scenario. (For more information about the four emissions scenarios, see Appendix B.4.) Precipitation in San Mateo County will continue to vary each year. The differences between wet and dry years are projected to become more extreme and damaging in the coming decades. If no action is taken to combat climate change, the Sierra snowpack, a critical source of water for the State, will decrease by an average of 64 percent by the end of the century.20 As temperature continues to increase, it is anticipated to cause longer and more intense California droughts, posing major problems for government operations, water supplies, ecosystems, agriculture, and recreation. Studies suggest that even with significant emissions reductions, it is inevitable that there will be at least 6 feet of sea -level rise over the next several centuries due to the delayed effects of climate change. City of Redwood City Climate Action Plan 22 338