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)
Attribution of the local Hadley cell widening in the Southern Hemisphere Geophysical Research Letters Yeon‐Hee Kim, Seung‐Ki Min, Seok‐Woo Son, Jung Choi
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: Influences of Natural Variability and Anthropogenic Forcing on the Extreme 2015 Accumulated Cyclone Energy in the Western North Pacific Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Wei Zhang, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Hiroyuki Murakami, Thomas L. Delworth, Karen Paffendorf, Liwei Jia, Gabriele Villarin, Rich Gudgel, Fanrong Zeng, and Xiaosong Yang
EEE 2015: Multimodel Assessment of Anthropogenic Influence on Record Global and Regional Warmth During 2015 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Jonghun Kam, Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng, and Andrew T. Wittenberg
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: An Assessment of the Role of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the Alaska Fire Season of 2015 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society James L. Partain Jr., Sharon Alden, Uma S. Bhatt, Peter A. Bieniek, Brian R. Brettschneider, Rick T. Lader, Peter Q. Olsson, T. Scott Rupp, Heidi Strader, Richard L. Thoman Jr., John E. Walsh, Alison D. York, and Robert H. Ziel
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
Rapid attribution of the August 2016 flood-inducing extreme precipitation in south Louisiana to climate change World Weather Attribution, Hydrology and Earth Systems Science Karin van der Wiel, Sarah B. Kapnick, Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Kirien Whan, Sjoukje Philip, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Roop K. Singh, Julie Arrighi, and Heidi Cullen
The twenty‐first century Colorado River hot drought and implications for the future Water Resources Research Bradley Udall, Jonathan Overpeck
Influence of the Ocean and Greenhouse Gases on Severe Drought Likelihood in the Central United States in 2012 Journal of Climate David E. Rupp, Sihan Li, and Philip W. Mote
U.S. Heat, February 2017 World Weather Attribution Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Andrew King, Friederike Otto, Gabriel Vecchi, Claudia Tebaldi, and Heidi Cullen
Anthropogenic warming impacts on California snowpack during drought Geophysical Research Letters Berg, Neil and Hall, Alex
Influence of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Planetary Wave Resonance and Extreme Weather Events Scientific Reports Michael E. Mann, Stefan Rahmstorf, Kai Kornhuber, Byron A. Steinman, Sonya K. Miller, Dim Coumou
Quantifying the influence of global warming on unprecedented extreme climate events Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Deepti Singh, Justin S. Mankin, Daniel E. Horton, Daniel L. Swain, Danielle Touma, Allison Charland, Yunjie Liu, Matz Haugen, Michael Tsiang, Bala Rajaratnam
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
California from drought to deluge Nature Climate Change S.-Y. Simon Wang, Jin-Ho Yoon, Emily Becker and Robert Gillies
Diagnosing conditional anthropogenic contributions to heavy Colorado rainfall in September 2013 Weather and Climate Extremes Pardeep Pall, Christina M. Patricola, Michael F. Wehner, Dáithí A. Stone, Christopher J. Paciorek, William D. Collins
Record Temperature Streak Bears Anthropogenic Fingerprint Geophysical Research Letters Mann, Michael E., Miller, Sonya K., Rahmstorf, Stefan, Steinman, Byron A., Tingley, Martin
The 2016 Southeastern U.S. Drought: An Extreme Departure From Centennial Wetting and Cooling Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres A. Park Williams, Benjamin I. Cook, Jason E. Smerdon, Daniel A. Bishop, Richard Seager, Justin S. Mankin
Attributing changing rates of temperature record‐breaking to anthropogenic influences Earth's Future King, Andrew D.