Extreme event attribution, also known as attribution science, is a relatively new field of study in

meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...

and

climate science Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of stu ...

that tries to measure how ongoing

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

directly affects recent

extreme weather Extreme weather or extreme climate events includes unexpected, unusual, severe, or unseasonal weather; weather at the extremes of the historical distribution—the range that has been seen in the past. Often, extreme events are based on a loca ...

events. Attribution science aims to determine which such recent events can be explained by or linked to a warming atmosphere and are not simply due to natural variations.

History

Attribution science was first mentioned in a 2011 "State of the Climate" published by the

American Meteorological Society The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is the premier scientific and professional organization in the United States promoting and disseminating information about the atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences. Its mission is to advance th ...

which stated that climate change is linked to six extreme weather events that were studied.

Purpose, methods and findings

German climatologist Friederike Otto posited that attribution science aims to answer the question, "did climate change play a role" in specific extreme events "within the news time frame – so within two weeks of the event". Attribution studies generally proceed in four steps: (1) measuring the magnitude and frequency of a given event based on observed data, (2) running computer models to compare with and verify observation data, (3) running the same models on a baseline "Earth" with no climate change, and (4) using statistics to analyze the differences between the second and third steps, thereby measuring the direct effect of climate change on the studied event. Heatwaves are the easiest weather events to attribute. Climate change can affect the intensity and frequency of extreme weather differently, for example the 2010 Russia heat wave was made far more likely but not more intense.

Applications and implications

Attribution science may affect

climate change litigation Climate change litigation, also known as climate litigation, is an emerging body of environmental law using legal practice to set case law precedent to further climate change mitigation efforts from public institutions, such as governments and com ...

, perhaps by increasing lawsuits against companies for causing and governments for not addressing climate change.

Examples

* A

review A review is an evaluation of a publication, product, service, or company or a critical take on current affairs in literature, politics or culture. In addition to a critical evaluation, the review's author may assign the work a rating to indi ...

summarized confidence, probabilities and costs-severities – such as economic costs, financial costs and number of early losses of life – of links to climate change and identified potential ways for the improvement of the field such as "improving the recording of extreme weather impacts around the world, improving the coverage of attribution studies across different events and regions, and using attribution studies to explore the contributions of both climate and non-climate drivers of impacts." * Scientists of the international World Weather Attribution project publicized a study that found that human-caused climate change had an influence on the 2019–20 Australian wildfires by causing high-risk conditions that made widespread burning at least 30 percent more likely. They comment on the results, stating that climate change probably had more effects on the fires which couldn't be attributed using their climate simulations and that not all drivers of the fires showed imprints of anthropogenic climate change. * The World Weather Attribution initiative has attributed the

2021 Western North America heat wave The 2021 Western North America heat wave was an extreme heat wave that affected much of Western North America from late June through mid-July 2021. Rapid attribution analysis found this was a 1000-year weather event, made 150 times more likely ...

to climate change. * Further analyses can be found on the WWA's website. * The Climate Attribution Database contains scientific resources organized by theme. * A study of 2020 storms of at least tropical storm-strength published in ''

Nature Communications ''Nature Communications'' is a peer-reviewed, open access, scientific journal published by Nature Portfolio since 2010. It is a multidisciplinary journal and it covers the natural sciences, including physics, chemistry, earth sciences, medici ...

'' concluded that human-induced climate change increased extreme 3-hourly storm rainfall rates by 10%, and extreme 3-day accumulated rainfall amounts by 5%. For hurricane-strength storms, the figures increased to 11% and 8%. * As of October 2022, the United States had been affected by 15 weather/climate disaster events, each with losses surpassing $1 billion.

References

External links