How Climate Change Could Be the Ruin of Los Angeles

Around the country, cities are doing their best to plan ahead for the impacts of climate change. In New York, more intense storms could put parts of the Financial District underwater and wreck havoc on roadways and subway lines. In New Orleans, rising sea levels may submerge wetlands altogether, increasing the city’s vulnerability to hurricanes. And in the Southwest, metro areas are expected to have a harder time supplying their populations with water.

But few cities are facing the serious environmental double whammy that’s most likely in store for Los Angeles. Not only do scientists predict that rising sea levels will increase the likelihood of coastal flooding there, but also that rising temperatures will threaten the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which provides about a third of the drinking water used by the L.A. Department of Water and Power, the nation’s largest municipal utility.