by In California’s boom-and-bust climate, Death Valley has offered some of the strangest scenes in recent years.
Some of the area’s perennial creosote bushes died again during a severe drought that crippled the region through 2022. Then annual wildflowers revived from seed in the past year due to heavy downpours – from the remnants of Hurricane Hilary and storms in after that.
During the winter, an ancient lake that is now disappearing again was a great success.
Together, these extremes created strange juxtapositions in the famous desert.
“I could take you to a field of dead creosote bushes with pretty wildflowers growing in between,” said Patrick Donnelly, a conservation biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “For a plant, it’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland – everything is dead – then spring comes and flowers are growing between the bodies.”
Climate scientists have long predicted that global warming would cause drought in California’s inland desert and greatly increase rainfall events. Death Valley locals say they are watching that dynamic play out in real time. How desert plants, animals and local economies adapt to environmental changes that are already one of the most extreme on earth will determine the future of this symbol of resilience.
“It’s interesting to have a front seat,” Donnelly said. “This is the signature of climate chaos.”
A 1-in-1,000 year storm – twice
Susan Sorrells, who owns the Shoshone ecotourism town, which is adjacent to Death Valley National Park, said the weather in the area is “always a rollercoaster ride”.
But that has been especially true in the last few years. In early 2022, Death Valley, like the rest of the American Southwest, remained in the driest period since the year 800. During the 22-year drought, soil moisture reached an all-time low. Plants were dying, including the creosote bush, which is known to live for thousands of years, thanks to its deep roots that seek water and can survive on little.
Therefore, to die during a drought is evidence of the severity of the weather.
“Desert shrubs are extremely tough and slow to die,” said Lynn Sweet, a research ecologist at the University of California Riverside. “But at some point, there is mortality.”
Then, in August of that year, there was a flood.
In just a few hours, Death Valley National Park received a record 1.7 inches of rain — about three-quarters of its typical annual total. The storm 1-in-1,000 years, as weather forecasters would later call it, washed out park roads, moving boulders and cars caught in debris.
About a year later, the remnants of Hurricane Hilary, a rare Pacific hurricane, dumped 2.2 inches of rain on the park—exceeding its typical annual rainfall in one day and setting a new 24-hour record.
“To have the worst drought in recorded history and the heaviest precipitation in recorded history, it’s obviously climate whiplash,” Donnelly said.
The rain closed the park, as well as Highway 127, which connects it to gateway communities but became a “raging river,” Sorrells said.
It operates an ecotourism business with a 20-bed inn, walking trails, trading post, RV park and the Crowbar Cafe and Saloon. For Sorrells, the situation was dire, as the reconstruction of the highway was to last through the winter and into the spring, making the area impossible to access during the busy season.
“We have a local joke: We make all our money from October to the end of April, and then we lose it from May to September,” she said.
The community came together and pushed state leaders to speed up the project, Sorrells said. The park partially opened in October, and the highway in January.
Then things took a wonderful turn.
The spring wildflowers, which grew in the fall, survived a warm winter, when the freezing would normally fall back, according to Donnelly. And in February, a multi-day atmospheric storm system brought another deluge.
The wildflowers “lasted long enough for the atmospheric river to recharge them with all this rain,” Donnelly said. “Now, they are growing in a very unusual way. They are much taller than usual, with very strong and thicker wild flowers.”
There was also enough water to revive Lake Manly, an ancient lake bed usually filled with dust.
For the first time, the National Park Service announced in February that it would allow kayakers to paddle the lake, which was as deep as 3 feet, according to NASA.
“People really came out for the sensational and fell in love with the beauty and charm and uniqueness of the desert,” said Sorrells. “We started booming to the point where we couldn’t keep up with the business.”
Arid climate, flashy weather
Most climate models expect California’s deserts to grow drier over time, but also for rare storms to become more intense because a warmer atmosphere holds more energy and water.
“Lighter storms, longer droughts,” Sweet said.
For some, the past few years have felt like a test drive of a new reality.
Many desert species go dormant or hibernate during drought, making wet years look similar in color and relative activity.
The Mojave Desert tortoise, for example, spends drought in underground burrows. Female turtles can store sperm for years and save it when the climate is right to fertilize their eggs.
Some hard-coated desert wildflower seeds can survive for hundreds of years, until the right conditions arise.
“Death Valley is very big. You have to accept that plants and animals are adapted to the edges of things that are livable there. As it gets warmer, that becomes more of a challenge,” Sweet said.
Now, the rain is refreshing.
New shrubs are emerging, Sweet said, although they will need “a good series of wet years” to survive. Wildflowers feed harvest ants, which feed lizards, which feed coyotes and other species.
“Hopefully the increase in resources will make its way up the food chain,” Sweet said.
In a warmer and drier future, she said such reliefs will be necessary: ”Hopefully we’ll get these recovery periods of precipitation to replenish the seed bank and energy reservoir of the entire ecosystem.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
