Scientists claim human caused climate change is one of the major factors that helped fuel the emergence of the extreme drought currently experienced in California.

The study reveals that two major weather conditions apparently led to the drought that brought higher than normal temperatures and little rains and snow. These two weather changes were apparently caused by climate change.

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To date, almost 98 percent of California is suffering from drought in the last four years and according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the drought shows no signs of slowing down or ceasing.

The worst droughts from California's history were ones when weather conditions were both dry and warm and researchers are now concerned that climate change will increase the occurrence of the two weather patterns--higher temperatures and little rain and snow, according to lead author of the study, Noah Diffenbaugh from Stanford University.

He also adds that California's very dry years along with warmer temperatures could not have happened without human influence or interference.

Human influence that aggravated global warming includes burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and charcoal that increases the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouses gases in the atmosphere that are not caused by organic sources.

The study also projected this trend will continue as dry and warm years coincide with one another. The team investigated historical weather records along with computer simulations to reach this conclusion.

Some scientists were not entirely convinced by the Stanford study and doubted the methodology and findings. Martin Hoerling from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) says that lack of rain or snow in California isn't part of a long time trend or part of human caused global warming.

Hoerling also adds that the drought measurement tool used by the team called the Palmer Drought Severity Index was flawed and unreliable in measuring the impact of climate change to California's drought season.

Richard Seager from Columbia University also says this warming trend can only be accounted for a small part of the total actual warmth in California in the last two winters. Hoerling and Seager released a NOAA report last December stating that natural weather patterns and not man- made global warming is the primary reason for the extended drought in California.

The drought study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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