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)
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
Water and energy budgets of hurricanes: Case studies of Ivan and Katrina Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Trenberth, Kevin E., Davis, Christopher A., Fasullo, John
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
Unusually high temperatures at the North Pole, winter 2016 World Weather Attribution
Unprecedented climate events: Historical changes, aspirational targets, and national commitments Science Advances Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Deepti Singh, and Justin S. Mankin
Unnatural Coastal Floods: Sea level rise and the human fingerprint on U.S. floods since 1950 Climate Central Benjamin H. Strauss, Robert E. Kopp, William V. Sweet, Klaus Bittermann
U.S. Heat, February 2017 World Weather Attribution Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Andrew King, Friederike Otto, Gabriel Vecchi, Claudia Tebaldi, and Heidi Cullen
Twentieth-century hydroclimate changes consistent with human influence Nature Kate Marvel, Benjamin I. Cook, Céline J. W. Bonfils, Paul J. Durack, Jason E. Smerdon, A. Park Williams
Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Assessment: Part I Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Thomas Knutson, Suzana J. Camargo, Johnny C. L. Chan, Kerry Emanuel, Chang-Hoi Ho, James Kossin, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Masaki Satoh, Masato Sugi, Kevin Walsh, and Liguang Wu
Trends in Weather Extremes World Weather Attribution Geert Jan van Oldenborgh
Towards the detection and attribution of an anthropogenic effect on climate Climate Dynamics Benjamin D. Santer, Karl E. Taylor, Tom M. L. Wigley, Joyce E. Penner, Philip D. Jones, Ulrich Cubasch
Toward Regional-Scale Climate Change Detection AMS Journal of Climate Francis W. Zwiers and Xuebin Zhang
The twenty‐first century Colorado River hot drought and implications for the future Water Resources Research Bradley Udall, Jonathan Overpeck
The Roles of Climate Change and Climate Variability in the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season Scientific Reports Young-Kwon Lim, Siegfried D. Schubert, Robin Kovach, Andrea M. Molod, Steven Pawson
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
The human influence on Hurricane Florence Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences Kevin Reed, Alyssa Stansfield, Michael Wehner, and Colin Zarzycki
The economic costs of Hurricane Harvey attributable to climate change Climatic Change David J. Frame, Michael F. Wehner, Ilan Noy, Suzanne M. Rosier
The contribution of anthropogenic forcings to regional changes in temperature during the last decade Climate Dynamics Nikolaos Christidis, Peter A. Stott, Francis W. Zwiers, Hideo Shiogama, Toru Nozawa
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
Temperature-driven global sea-level variability in the Common Era Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Robert E. Kopp, Andrew C. Kemp, Klaus Bittermann, Benjamin P. Horton, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, W. Roland Gehrels, Carling C. Hay, Jerry X. Mitrovica, Eric D. Morrow, Stefan Rahmstorf