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 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 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 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 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: 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
Detectable Changes in the Frequency of Temperature Extremes AMS Journal of Climate Simone Morak, Gabriele C. Hegerl, and Nikolaos Christidis
Anthropogenic Warming of the Oceans: Observations and Model Results AMS Journal of Climate David W. Pierce and Tim P. Barnett
California from drought to deluge Nature Climate Change S.-Y. Simon Wang, Jin-Ho Yoon, Emily Becker and Robert Gillies
Model Assessment of Observed Precipitation Trends Over Land Regions: Detectable Human Influences and Possible Low Bias in Model Trends AMS Journal of Climate Thomas R. Knutson and Fanrong Zeng
Probabilistic estimates of recent changes in temperature: a multi-scale attribution analysis Climate Dynamics Nikolaos Christidis, Peter A. Stott, Francis W. Zwiers, Hideo Shiogama, Toru Nozawa
Increase of extreme events in a warming world Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Stefan Rahmstorf and Dim Coumou
Detectable regional changes in the number of warm nights Geophysical Research Letters Morak, S., Hegerl, G. C., Kenyon, J.
Detection and Attribution of Observed Changes in Northern Hemisphere Spring Snow Cover AMS Journal of Climate David E. Rupp and Philip W. Mote
Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017 World Weather Attribution, Environmental Research Letters Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Karin van der Wiel, Antonia Sebastian, Roop Singh, Julie Arrighi, Friederike Otto, Karsten Haustein, Sihan Li, Gabriel Vecchi and Heidi Cullen
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
Assessing the present and future probability of Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Kerry Emanuel
Attributing changing rates of temperature record‐breaking to anthropogenic influences Earth's Future King, Andrew D.
Impact of climate change on New York City’s coastal flood hazard: Increasing flood heights from the preindustrial to 2300 CE Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Andra J. Garner, Michael E. Mann, Kerry A. Emanuel, Robert E. Kopp, Ning Ling, Richard B. Alley, Benjamin P. Horton, Robert M. DeContok, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, and David Pollard
Catastrophe Modelling and Climate Change Lloyds Ralf Toumi and Lauren Restell
Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes Nature Seung-Ki Min, Xuebin Zhang, Francis W. Zwiers, Gabriele C. Hegerl