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)
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
The Role of Human Activity in the Recent Warming of Extremely Warm Daytime Temperatures AMS Journal of Climate Nikolaos Christidis, Peter A. Stott, and Simon J. Brown
Detecting climate signals in the surface temperature record AMS Journal of Climate Gerald R. North and Mark J. Stevens
Dominant Role of Subtropical Pacific Warming in Extreme Eastern Pacific Hurricane Seasons: 2015 and the Future AMS Journal of Climate Hiroyuki Murakami, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Thomas L. Delworth, Andrew T. Wittenberg, Seth Underwood, Richard Gudgel, Xiaosong Yang, Liwei Jia, Fanrong Zeng, Karen Paffendorf, and Wei Zhang
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
Multimodel Multisignal Climate Change Detection at Regional Scale AMS Journal of Climate Xuebin Zhang
Causes of the 2011–14 California Drought AMS Journal of Climate Richard Seager, Martin Hoerling, Siegfried Schubert, Hailan Wang, Bradfield Lyon, Arun Kumar, Jennifer Nakamura, and Naomi Henderson
Human Contribution to the Lengthening of the Growing Season during 1950–99 AMS Journal of Climate Nikolaos Christidis, Peter A. Stott, and Simon Brown
Detection and Attribution of Observed Changes in Northern Hemisphere Spring Snow Cover AMS Journal of Climate David E. Rupp and Philip W. Mote
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: 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