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)
Impact of climate change on New York City’s coastal flood hazard: Increasing flood heights from the preindustrial to 2300 CE Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Andra J. Garner, Michael E. Mann, Kerry A. Emanuel, Robert E. Kopp, Ning Ling, Richard B. Alley, Benjamin P. Horton, Robert M. DeContok, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, and David Pollard
Assessing the present and future probability of Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Kerry Emanuel
Is There a Role for Human-Induced Climate Change in the Precipitation Decline that Drove the California Drought? AMS Journal of Climate Richard Seager, Naomi Henderson, Mark A. Cane, Haibo Liu, and Jennifer Nakamura
Drivers of 2016 record Arctic warmth assessed using climate simulations subjected to Factual and Counterfactual forcing Weather and Climate Extremes Lantao Sun, Dave Allured, Martin Hoerling, Lesley Smith, Judith Perlwitz, Don Murray, Jon Eischeid
Evidence that Recent Warming is Reducing Upper Colorado River Flows AMS Earth Interactions Gregory J. McCabe
Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 World Weather Attribution, Environmental Research Letters Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Karin van der Wiel, Antonia Sebastian, Roop Singh, Julie Arrighi, Friederike Otto, Karsten Haustein, Sihan Li, Gabriel Vecchi and Heidi Cullen
Widespread persistent changes to temperature extremes occurred earlier than predicted Scientific Reports Chao Li, Yuanyuan Fang, Ken Caldeira, Xuebin Zhang, Noah S. Diffenbaugh and Anna M. Michalak
Unprecedented climate events: Historical changes, aspirational targets, and national commitments Science Advances Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Deepti Singh, and Justin S. Mankin
Trends in Weather Extremes World Weather Attribution Geert Jan van Oldenborgh
Model Assessment of Observed Precipitation Trends Over Land Regions: Detectable Human Influences and Possible Low Bias in Model Trends AMS Journal of Climate Thomas R. Knutson and Fanrong Zeng
Synoptic and Climate Attributions of the December 2015 Extreme Flooding in Missouri, USA Water Boniface Fosu, Simon Wang, and Kathleen Pegion
EEE 2016: Forcing of Multiyear Extreme Ocean Temperatures that Impacted California Current Living Marine Resources in 2016 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Michael G. Jacox, Michael A. Alexander, Nathan J. Mantua, James D. Scott, Gaelle Hervieux, Robert S. Webb, and Francisco E. Werner
EEE 2016: Anthropogenic and Natural Influences on Record 2016 Marine Heat waves Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Eric C. J. Oliver, Sarah E. Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Neil J. Holbrook, and Nathaniel L. Bindoff
EEE 2016: CMIP5 Model-based Assessment of Anthropogenic Influence on Record Global Warmth during 2016 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Thomas R. Knutson, Jonghun Kam, Fanrong Zeng and Andrew T. Wittenberg
EEE 2016: CMIP5 Model-based Assessment of Anthropogenic Influence on Highly Anomalous Arctic Warmth During November–December 2016 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Jonghun Kam, Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng, and Andrew T. Wittenberg
EEE 2016: Anthropogenic Forcings and Associated Changes in Fire Risk in Western North America and Australia During 2015/16 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Simon F. B. Tett, Alexander Falk, Megan Rogers, Fiona Spuler, Calum Turner, Joshua Wainwright, Oscar Dimdore-Miles, Sam Knight, Nicolas Freychet, Michael J. Mineter, and Caroline E. R. Lehmann
EEE 2016: The Extreme 2015/16 El Niño, in the Context of Historical Climate Variability and Change Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Matthew Newman, Andrew T. Wittenberg, Linyin Cheng, Gilbert P. Compo, and Catherine A. Smith
EEE 2016: The High Latitude Marine Heat Wave of 2016 and Its Impacts on Alaska Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society John E. Walsh, Richard L. Thoman, Uma S. Bhatt, Peter A. Bieniek, Brian Brettschneider, Michael Brubaker, Seth Danielson, Rick Lader, Florence Fetterer, Kris Holderied, Katrin Iken, Andy Mahoney, Molly McCammon, and James Partain
Attribution of climate effects on Hurricane Harvey's extreme rainfall in Texas Submitted: Environmental Research Letters S.-Y. Simon Wang, Lin Zhao, Jin-Ho Yoon, Phil Klotzbach, and Robert R. Gillies
Increasing precipitation volatility in twenty-first-century California Nature Climate Change Daniel L. Swain, Baird Langenbrunner, J. David Neelin, Alex Hall