New studies speed analysis of extreme weather events

New York Times : Over the past decade, more complex computer models and ever-increasing amounts of weather data have been allowing climate scientists to not only better understand extreme weather events but also determine whether they were caused by climate change. An international effort called World Weather Attribution (WWA) has been working to accelerate such analyses and communicate the results. WWA scientists have found they achieve the best results by running climate models many times, varying the parameters, and averaging the results, which is a time-consuming process. To speed up their analysis of current weather events, the researchers rely on models that have already been run. Most recently, WWA scientists were able to determine within two weeks that the severe flooding in France last month was likely caused by climate change. The evidence was inconclusive regarding similar flooding in Germany.