Science Sources: Detection and Attribution

Climate Signals tracks detection and attribution studies in real time. Below is an updating database of studies that find the fingerprint of human-caused climate change on observed trends and events. The database is limited to studies of local significance in the United States and studies of global significance. For a broader database of peer-reviewed studies and organizational reports on climate change trends, please see all Science Sources.

Search or browse our collection of detection and attribution studies below, or learn more about detection and attribution studies.

Title Source Date Author(s)
Forced and Internal Twentieth-Century SST Trends in the North Atlantic AMS Journal of Climate Mingfang Ting, Yochanan Kushnir, Richard Seager, and Cuihua Li
Distinguishing Pronounced Droughts in the Southwestern United States: Seasonality and Effects of Warmer Temperatures AMS Journal of Climate Jeremy L. Weiss
A multiregion model evaluation and attribution study of historical changes in the area affected by temperature and precipitation extremes AMS Journal of Climate Andrea J. Dittus and David J. Karoly
Attribution of Declining Western U.S. Snowpack to Human Effects AMS Journal of Climate David W. Pierce, Tim P. Barnett, Hugo G. Hidalgo, Tapash Das, Céline Bonfils, Benjamin D. Santer, Govindasamy Bala, Michael D. Dettinger, Daniel R. Cayan, Art Mirin, Andrew W. Wood, and Toru Nozawa
Causes of Robust Seasonal Land Precipitation Changes AMS Journal of Climate Debbie Polson and Gabriele C. Hegerl
Detection and attribution of temperature changes in the mountainous western United States AMS Journal of Climate Céline Bonfils, Benjamin D. Santer, David W. Pierce, Hugo G. Hidalgo, Govindasamy Bala, Tapash Das, Tim P. Barnett, Daniel R. Cayan, Charles Doutriaux, Andrew W. Wood, Art Mirin, and Toru Nozawa
Detection and Attribution of Streamflow Timing Changes to Climate Change in the Western United States AMS Journal of Climate H. G. Hidalgo, T. Das, M. D. Dettinger, D. R. Cayan, D. W. Pierce, T. P. Barnett, G. Bala, A. Mirin, A. W. Wood, C. Bonfils, B. D. Santer, and T. Nozawa
Attribution of extreme events in Arctic sea ice extent AMS Journal of Climate Megan C. Kirchmeier-Young
Toward Regional-Scale Climate Change Detection AMS Journal of Climate Francis W. Zwiers and Xuebin Zhang
Anatomy of an Extreme Event AMS Journal of Climate Martin Hoerling, Arun Kumar, Randall Dole, John W. Nielsen-Gammon, Jon Eischeid, Judith Perlwitz, Xiao-Wei Quan, Tao Zhang, Philip Pegion, and Mingyue Chen
Attributing Causes of 2015 Record Minimum Sea-Ice Extent in the Sea of Okhotsk AMS Journal of Climate Seungmok Paik, Seung-Ki Min, and Yeon-Hee Kim
Deducing Multidecadal Anthropogenic Global Warming Trends Using Multiple Regression Analysis AMS Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences Jiansong Zhou and Ka-Kit Tung
Single‐step attribution of increasing frequencies of very warm regional temperatures to human influence Atmospheric Science Letters Peter A. Stott, Gareth S. Jones, Nikolaos Christidis, Francis W. Zwiers, Gabriele Hegerl, Hideo Shiogama
Detecting an external influence on recent changes in oceanic oxygen using an optimal fingerprinting method Biogeosciences Andrews, O. D., Bindoff, N. L., Halloran, P. R., Ilyina, T., Quéré, C. Le
Using present-day observations to detect when anthropogenic change forces surface ocean carbonate chemistry outside preindustrial bounds Biogeosciences Sutton, Adrienne J., Sabine, Christopher L., Feely, Richard A., Cai, Wei-Jun, Cronin, Meghan F., McPhaden, Michael J., Morell, Julio M., Newton, Jan A., Noh, Jae-Hoon, Ólafsdóttir, Sólveig R., Salisbury, Joseph E., Send, Uwe et al
EEE 2015: The 2014/15 Snowpack Drought in Washington State and its Climate Forcing Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Boniface O. Fosu, S.-Y. Simon Wang, and Jin-Ho Yoon
EEE 2015: The Role of Arctic Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperatures on the Cold 2015 February Over North America Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Omar Bellprat, François Massonnet, Javier García-Serrano, Neven S. Fučkar, Virginie Guemas, and Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes
EEE 2015: Record Low Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent in March 2015 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Neven S. Fučkar, François Massonnet, Virginie Guemas, Javier García-Serrano, Omar Bellprat, Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, and Mario Acosta
EEE 2014: Human Contribution to the 2014 Record High Sea Surface Temperatures Over the Western Tropical And Northeast Pacific Ocean Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Evan Weller, Seung-Ki Min, Donghyun Lee, Wenju Cai, Sang-Wook Yeh, and Jong-Seong Kug
EEE 2014: Investigating the Influence of Anthropogenic Forcing and Natural Variability on the 2014 Hawaiian Hurricane Season Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Hiroyuki Murakami, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Thomas L. Delworth, Karen Paffendorf, Richard Gudgel, Liwei Jia, and Fanrong Zeng