Attribution of extreme weather and climate‐related events

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dc.contributor.authorStott, Peter A.
dc.contributor.authorChristidis, Nikolaos
dc.contributor.authorOtto, Friederike E. L.
dc.contributor.authorSun, Ying
dc.contributor.authorVanderlinden, Jean‐Paul
dc.contributor.authorVan Oldenborgh, Geert Jan
dc.contributor.authorVautard, Robert
dc.contributor.authorvon Storch, Hans
dc.contributor.authorWalton, Peter
dc.contributor.authorYiou, Pascal
dc.contributor.authorZwiers, Francis W.
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-10T20:27:24Z
dc.date.available2025-04-10T20:27:24Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.description.abstractExtreme weather and climate‐related events occur in a particular place, by definition, infrequently. It is therefore challenging to detect systematic changes in their occurrence given the relative shortness of observational records. However, there is a clear interest from outside the climate science community in the extent to which recent damaging extreme events can be linked to human‐induced climate change or natural climate variability. Event attribution studies seek to determine to what extent anthropogenic climate change has altered the probability or magnitude of particular events. They have shown clear evidence for human influence having increased the probability of many extremely warm seasonal temperatures and reduced the probability of extremely cold seasonal temperatures in many parts of the world. The evidence for human influence on the probability of extreme precipitation events, droughts, and storms is more mixed. Although the science of event attribution has developed rapidly in recent years, geographical coverage of events remains patchy and based on the interests and capabilities of individual research groups. The development of operational event attribution would allow a more timely and methodical production of attribution assessments than currently obtained on an ad hoc basis. For event attribution assessments to be most useful, remaining scientific uncertainties need to be robustly assessed and the results clearly communicated. This requires the continuing development of methodologies to assess the reliability of event attribution results and further work to understand the potential utility of event attribution for stakeholder groups and decision makers.
dc.description.reviewstatusReviewed
dc.description.scholarlevelFaculty
dc.description.sponsorshipThe research leading to these results has received funding under the EUCLEIA (EUropean Climate and weather Events: Interpretation and Attribution) project under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme [FP7/2007-2013] under grant agreement no 607085 (PAS, NC, J-V, HvS, GvO, RV, PW, PY) PAS was partially supported by the UK-China Research & Innovation Partnership Fund through the Met Office Climate Science for Service Partnership (CCSP) China as part of the Newton fund. PAS and NC were partially supported by the Joint UK DECC/Defra Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme (GA01101). PY acknowledges support from ERC Grant No. 338965-A2C2. Y. Sun is supported by Chinese programs 2012CB417205 and GYHY201406020
dc.identifier.citationStott, P. A., Christidis, N., Otto, F. E. L., Sun, Y., Vanderlinden, J., Van Oldenborgh, G. J., Vautard, R., von Storch, H., Walton, P., Yiou, P., & Zwiers, F. W. (2016). Attribution of extreme weather and climate‐related events. WIREs Climate Change, 7(1), 23–41. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.380
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.380
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/21772
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherWIREs Climate Change
dc.rightsCC BY-NC-ND 4.0
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectUN SDG 13: Climate Action
dc.subject#journal article
dc.subjectPacific Climate Impacts Consortium (PCIC)
dc.titleAttribution of extreme weather and climate‐related events
dc.typeArticle

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