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)
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
Detection of human influence on a new, validated 1500-year temperature reconstruction AMS Journal of Climate Gabriele C. Hegerl, Thomas J. Crowley, Myles Allen, William T. Hyde, Henry N. Pollack, Jason Smerdon, and Eduardo Zorita
Multimodel Detection and Attribution of Extreme Temperature Changes AMS Journal of Climate Seung-Ki Min, Xuebin Zhang, Francis Zwiers, Hideo Shiogama, Yu-Shiang Tung, and Michael Wehner
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
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
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
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
EEE 2017: Observations of the Rate and Acceleration of Global Mean Sea Level Change Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society R. S. Nerem and J. Fasullo
EEE 2013: Causes of the Extreme Dry Conditions Over California During Early 2013 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Hailan Wang and Siegfried Schubert
EEE 2017: Anthropogenic Contributions to the Intensity of the 2017 United States Northern Great Plains Drought Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Andrew Hoell, Judith Perlwitz, Candida Dewes, Klaus Wolter, Imtiaz Rangwala, Xiao-Wei Quan, and Jon Eischeid
EEE 2013: Seasonal- and annual-mean precipitation extremes occurring during 2013: A U.S. focused analysis Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng, and Andrew T. Wittenberg