Kevin T. Smiley, Deepti Singh, Jennifer Marlon, and Jim Hurrell at The Conversation:
When a devastating heat wave, hurricane, flood or wildfire strikes, people often want to know: How much did human-caused climate change influence this event, if at all?
For many years, scientists could answer that question only in general terms. They knew that human-caused climate change was increasing the frequency or intensity of some kinds of extreme weather, but determining its influence on a particular event was much more difficult.
Today, researchers can provide a scientifically grounded answer that assesses whether climate change made a heat wave hotter, increased rainfall from a hurricane, or made a drought more severe. But the answers are not always straightforward, and they are not equally certain for every type of extreme event.
We served on the 14-member National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee that produced a new report that reviewed where this rapidly developing field, known as extreme event attribution, stands today.
More here.
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