I. Climate Science (Science of Climate Change Attributes)

How climate scientists feel about seeing their dire predictions come true

August 18, 2023

L.A. Times

Comments of many climate scientists on the impact of climate change on recent regional weather events. Click here

Extreme heat in North America, Europe and China in July 2023 made much more likely by climate change

July 25, 2023

F. Otto, et al

This paper could not be more timely. It addresses the extreme heat events that are occurring right now (as in July 2023) and concludes that they would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, and more specifically, fossil fuel emissions. Click here

The 15 hottest days, in the world's hottest month

July 19, 2023

A Freedman (AXIOS)

By the end of the week, it is likely that 15 days just this month will have breached an unprecedented global temperature threshold ­ a clarion wakeup call in the form of extreme weather. Click here

Why a sudden surge of broken heat records is scaring scientists

July 6, 2023

Washington Post

A remarkable spate of historic heat is hitting the planet, raising alarm over looming extreme weather dangers ­ and an increasing likelihood this year will be Earth’s warmest on record. Click here

Climate change will accelerate the high-end risk of compound drought and heatwave events

July 2023

Research Gate

Compound drought and heatwave (CDHW) events have garnered increased attention due to their significant impacts on agriculture, energy, water resources, and ecosystems. Click here

The Crises of Heat and Smoke Share a Common Thread: Climate Change

June 2023

New York Times

Human-caused climate change is making high temperatures more common and intensifying dryness that fuels catastrophic wildfires. Click here

Climate change: UN's Guterres lambasts fossil fuel firms

June 2023

Deutsche Welle (DW)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres sharply criticized fossil fuel companies for reaping in massive profits while the world faces the imminent threat of global warming. Click here

2012-2022 Regional Climate and Health Monitoring Report – PRELIMINARY DRAFT

2022

Regional Climate and Health Monitoring

Regional Climate and Health Monitoring Report provides data on 12 health indicators. The indicators span six areas that climate change is known to affect. Results from this report will help guide current adaptation and mitigation efforts and serves as a benchmark for ongoing measurement. This document is the second update to the Regional Climate and Health Monitoring Report released in 2019. Click here

The Scientific Case for Climate Liability and Loss and Damage Claims.

November 2022

J.S. Mankin, C. W. Callahan

Who is responsible for the damage caused by global warming? Historically, the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) has been an annual occasion to remind everyone of the deep intransigence among the world’s climate polluters not just on mitigation, but on substantive questions of compensation for the harms brought by global warming. One reason for the lack of meaningful compromise has been the veil of plausible deniability that major emitting countries have hid behind when it comes to emissions and damage. All countries contribute to the climate problem—and so, the logic goes, no one country can be blamed. Click here

Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world.

August 2022

Carbon Briefing

This map graphically depicts the increase in extreme weather events across the globe, including heatwaves, hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, the vast majority of which caused and/or influenced by human induced climate change. Click here

Big Oil Is Trying to Make Climate Change Your Problem to Solve. Don't Let Them.

May 14, 2021

Amy Westervelt (Rolling Stone Magazine)

A new paper from Harvard science historians Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran shows that the framing of climate change, in particular, as something that wouldn't be an issue if we had all just made better consumer choices has been persistent and effective.

ExxonMobil says this study is part of a litigation strategy against it and claims that Oreskes is on retainer for one of the law firms bringing these cases. Click here

Pathways and pitfalls in extreme event attribution.

2021

F. Otto, et al

Whenever an extreme weather or climate event occurs, the question inevitably arises whether it was caused by climate change or, more precisely, by the influence of human activities on climate. The interpretation of this question hinges on the meaning of the word ‘caused’: just as in the connection between smoking and lung cancer, the influence of anthropogenic climate change on extreme events is inherently probabilistic. Click here

Under-reporting of greenhouse gas emissions in U.S. cities.

2021

K. Gourney, et al

Cities dominate greenhouse gas emissions. Many have generated self-reported emission inventories, but their value to emissions mitigation depends on their accuracy, which remains untested. This report compares self-reported inventories from 48 US cities to independent estimates from the Vulcan carbon dioxide emissions data product, which is consistent with atmospheric measurements. Click here

A protocol for probabilistic extreme event attribution analyses.

2020

F. Otto, et al

In the immediate aftermath of an extreme weather or climate event, questions are often raised about the role of climate change, whether and to what extent the event can be attributed to climate change, and whether the event is a harbinger of what is to come. The field of extreme event attribution aims to answer these questions and is witnessing a wealth of new methods and approaches being developed. Various groups are now actively performing thorough analyses and have produced a multitude of case studies (e.g. Herring et al., 2018). Click here

Drawing the Causal Chain: The Detection and Attribution of Climate Change.

2019

M. F. Wehner

This module describes the detection of human induced climate and its attribution to causal factors. This rigorous body of scientific literature has provided the evidence that human activities, principally the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas for energy, have changed climate. Click here

US Environmental Protection Agency: Climate Change is Happening.

January 2017

EPA

Topics such as the causes of climate change, the evidence for climate change, its impacts, and what can be done to mitigate and adapt to it. It emphasizes that climate change is largely caused by human activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, and that it has widespread and severe impacts on the environment, public health, and the economy. Click here

Attribution of Weather and Climate Events.

2017

F. Otto

Complex phenomena such as climate change have many potential causal influences. Of principal concern today is the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) resulting from the burning of fossil fuels for energy. According to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred”. Click here

Drilled: A True Crime Podcast about Climate Change

May, 2016

A limited series investigative true-crime podcast about the crime of the century: the creation of climate denial. Click here

Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record.

2016

M. Wehner, et al

This paper has provided an overview of detection and attribution as it relates to extreme events. There is increasing interest by many sectors of society for information about causes of extreme events, particularly if the cause can be linked to human-induced climate change. Click here

Answering the attribution question while the world is listening – attribution and the media.

2016

F. Otto

There is enough usable data available to allow us to understand what happened in terms of the meteorology so we know how to define the event. and enough historical observations to put the event in context. Click here

Model projections of time-dependent response to increasing carbon dioxide. Final report.

May 1985

Environmental Space

The state-of-the-art of mathematical models of transient climate change from historical and projected increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and related factors is reviewed, including studies done at NYU and elsewhere. Click here

Energy Balance Models Incorporating Evaporative Buffering of Equatorial Thermal Response

January 1984

Advance Earth and Space Sciences

We describe two non-standard energy balance models which include effects of latent heat on climate sensitivity, and apply them to study sensitivity to uniform variations in insolation and changes in the concentration of atmospheric CO2. Click here