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)
Record Temperature Streak Bears Anthropogenic Fingerprint Geophysical Research Letters Mann, Michael E., Miller, Sonya K., Rahmstorf, Stefan, Steinman, Byron A., Tingley, Martin
Diagnosing conditional anthropogenic contributions to heavy Colorado rainfall in September 2013 Weather and Climate Extremes Pardeep Pall, Christina M. Patricola, Michael F. Wehner, Dáithí A. Stone, Christopher J. Paciorek, William D. Collins
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
Detection of changes in temperature extremes during the second half of the 20th century Geophysical Research Letters Christidis, Nikolaos, Stott, Peter A., Brown, Simon, Hegerl, Gabriele C., Caesar, John
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
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
Anthropogenic Influence on Long Return Period Daily Temperature Extremes at Regional Scales American Meteorological Society Francis W. Zwiers, Xuebin Zhang and Yang Feng
Emergence of heat extremes attributable to anthropogenic influences Geophysical Research Letters King, Andrew D., Black, Mitchell T., Min, Seung‐Ki, Fischer, Erich M., Mitchell, Daniel M., Harrington, Luke J., Perkins‐Kirkpatrick, Sarah E.
Attributing the increase in Northern Hemisphere hot summers since the late 20th  century Geophysical Research Letters Kamae, Youichi, Shiogama, Hideo, Watanabe, Masahiro, Kimoto, Masahide
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
Quantifying the influence of global warming on unprecedented extreme climate events Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Noah S. Diffenbaugh, Deepti Singh, Justin S. Mankin, Daniel E. Horton, Daniel L. Swain, Danielle Touma, Allison Charland, Yunjie Liu, Matz Haugen, Michael Tsiang, Bala Rajaratnam
Perspectives on the causes of exceptionally low 2015 snowpack in the western United States Geophysical Research Letters Mote, Philip W., Rupp, David E., Li, Sihan, Sharp, Darrin J., Otto, Friederike, Uhe, Peter F., Xiao, Mu, Lettenmaier, Dennis P., Cullen, Heidi, Allen, Myles R.
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 Declining Western U.S. Snowpack to Human Effects AMS Journal of Climate David W. Pierce, Tim P. Barnett, Hugo G. Hidalgo, Tapash Das, Céline Bonfils, Benjamin D. Santer, Govindasamy Bala, Michael D. Dettinger, Daniel R. Cayan, Art Mirin, Andrew W. Wood, and Toru Nozawa
Human-Induced Changes in the Hydrology of the Western United States Science Tim P. Barnett, David W. Pierce, Hugo G. Hidalgo, Celine Bonfils, Benjamin D. Santer, Tapash Das, Govindasamy Bala, Andrew W. Wood, Toru Nozawa, Arthur A. Mirin, Daniel R. Cayan, Michael D. Dettinger
Influence of Anthropogenic Climate Change on Planetary Wave Resonance and Extreme Weather Events Scientific Reports Michael E. Mann, Stefan Rahmstorf, Kai Kornhuber, Byron A. Steinman, Sonya K. Miller, Dim Coumou
Anthropogenic warming impacts on California snowpack during drought Geophysical Research Letters Berg, Neil and Hall, Alex
U.S. Heat, February 2017 World Weather Attribution Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Andrew King, Friederike Otto, Gabriel Vecchi, Claudia Tebaldi, and Heidi Cullen
Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change Nature Rosenzweig, C., D. Karoly, M. Vicarelli, P. Neofotis, Q. Wu, G. Casassa, A. Menzel, T.L. Root, N. Estrella, B. Seguin, P. Tryjanowski, C. Liu, S. Rawlins, and A. Imeson
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