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)
EEE 2014: How Unusual was the Cold Winter of 2013/14 in the Upper Midwest? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Klaus Wolter, Jon K. Eischeid, Xiao-Wei Quan, and Thomas N. Chase
EEE 2014: Record Annual Mean Warmth Over Europe, the Northeast Pacific, and the Northwest Atlantic During 2014: Assessment of Anthropogenic Influence Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Jonghun Kam, Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng, and Andrew T. Wittenberg
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 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 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: 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: 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 2013: The extraordinary California drought of 2013/2014: character, context, and the role of climate change Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Daniel L. Swain, Michael Tsiang, Matz Haugen, Deepti Singh, Allison Charland, Bala Rajaratnam, and Noah S. Diffenbaug
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
EEE 2018: The Record Low Bering Sea Ice Extent in 2018 – Context, Impacts, and an Assessment of the Role of Anthropogenic Climate Change Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Thoman R. T., Bhatt, U. S., Bieniek, P. A., Brettschneider, B. R., Brubaker, M., et al . . . Walsh, J. E.
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 2018: Extreme Hail Storms and Climate Change: Foretelling the Future In Tiny, Turbulent Crystal Balls? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Kelly Mahoney
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 2018: Quantifying Human-Induced Temperature Impacts on the 2018 United States Four Corners Hydrologic and Agro-Pastoral Drought Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Williams, E., Funk, C., Shukla, S., and McEvoy, D.
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 2018: Anthropogenic Impacts on the Exceptional Precipitation of 2018 in the Mid-Atlantic United States Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Winter, J. H., Huang, H., Osterberg, E. C., and Mankin, J. S.
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
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
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