Assessing the role of climate change in extreme weather events
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.027321
Science : Last year saw a number of droughts, heat waves, and record rainfalls around the world. Whether they were due to anthropogenic climate change is what a new branch of research called “climate attribution science” seeks to determine. In a report published online in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, scientists working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed 19 scientific studies of 12 extreme weather events that occurred in 2012. According to their report, “Approximately half the analyses found some evidence that anthropogenically caused climate change was a contributing factor to the extreme event examined.” However, they add that the effects of natural fluctuations of weather and climate also played key roles.
