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 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
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
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 2012: The Extreme March-May 2012 Warm Anomaly Over the Eastern United States: Global Context and Multimodel Trend Analysis Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng, and Andrew T. Wittenberg
EEE 2012: Hurricane Sandy Inundation Probabilities Today and Tomorrow Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society William Sweet, Chris Zervas, Stephen Gill, and Joseph Park
EEE 2012: September 2012 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum: Discriminating Between Sea Ice Memory, The August 2012 Extreme Storm, and Prevailing Warm Conditions Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Virginie Guemas, Francisco Doblas-Reyes, Agathe Germe, Matthieu Chevallier, and David Salas y Mélia
EEE 2012: The Role of Global Climate Change in the Extreme Low Summer Arctic Sea Ice Extent in 2012 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Rong Zhang and Thomas R. Knutson
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
EEE 2014: Extreme Fire Season in California: A Glimpse Into the Future? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Jin-Ho Yoon, S.-Y. Simon Wang, Robert R. Gillies, Lawr ence Hipps, Ben Kravitz, Philip J. Rasch