World Weather Attribution is an academic collaboration studying

extreme event attribution Extreme event attribution, also known as attribution science, is a relatively new field of study in meteorology and climate science that tries to measure how ongoing climate change directly affects recent extreme weather events. Attribution scien ...

, calculations of the impact of climate change on extreme meteorological events such as heat waves, droughts, and storms. When an extreme event occurs, the project computes the likelihood that the occurrence, intensity, and duration of the event was due to climate change. The project specializes in producing reports rapidly, while news of the event is still fresh. World Weather Attribution was founded in 2014 by climatologists

Friederike Otto Friederike (Fredi) Elly Luise Otto (born 29 August 1982) is a climatologist who as of December 2021 works as a Senior Lecturer at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London. Previously she was Associ ...

, who continues as leader, and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh. Participating institutions are

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, the

Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute , nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = , logo_width = , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = FS IMG 8907 KNMI.jpg , picture_width = 250px , picture_caption = KNMI headquarters in De Bilt , for ...

Laboratoire des sciences du climat et de l'environnement The (LSCE, Climate and Environment Sciences Laboratory) is a laboratory for the study of climate and in particular climate change. It is part of the Institute Pierre Simon Laplace, and located on campuses in L'Orme des Merisiers and Gif sur Y ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, the U.S.

National Center for Atmospheric Research The US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR ) is a US federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) managed by the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and funded by the National Science Foundatio ...

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

IIT Delhi The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi is a public institute of technology located in New Delhi, India. It is one of the 23 IITs created to be Centres of Excellence for training, research and development in science, engineering and technolo ...

, and climate impact specialists at the Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre. The WWA response to an extreme meteorological event has three parts: * Define the event: the geographic region affected, which weather parameters are of interest. * Gather historical data: weather data from the region from 1950 to the present. From this historical data statistics on normal and extreme weather patterns for the locale can be computed. * Simulate the event many times with computer models, comparing simulations with present-day greenhouse gas conditions against previous greenhouse-gas conditions. Results are synthesized into a report and published first rapidly, then eventually through the scientific review process.

Example incidents

The following are examples of extreme cold, flood, and heat events that have been studied by WWA. * An unusual weather pattern which froze vineyards and other crops in France in spring 2021 was 60% more likely due to climate change. * Floods in Nigeria and neighboring areas in 2022 were rendered more likely and more intense due to climate change. WWA modeled the June to September rainfall in the

Lake Chad Lake Chad (french: Lac Tchad) is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Central Africa, which has varied in size over the centuries. According to the ''Global Resource Information Database'' of the United Nations Environment Programme, ...

and lower

Niger river The Niger River ( ; ) is the main river of West Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in south-eastern Guinea near the Sierra Leone border. It runs in a crescent shape through ...

catchment areas, looking at total rainfall and intense rain weeks. * The 2022 heat wave in India and Pakistan was rendered 30 times more likely and more intense due to climate change.

External links

References

{{reflist Meteorological organizations Climate change assessment and attribution