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)
Attribution of climate effects on Hurricane Harvey's extreme rainfall in Texas Submitted: Environmental Research Letters S.-Y. Simon Wang, Lin Zhao, Jin-Ho Yoon, Phil Klotzbach, and Robert R. Gillies
Synoptic and quantitative attributions of the extreme precipitation leading to the August 2016 Louisiana flood Geophysical Research Letters S.‐Y. Simon Wang, Lin Zhao, Robert R. Gillies
Synoptic and Climate Attributions of the December 2015 Extreme Flooding in Missouri, USA Water Boniface Fosu, Simon Wang, and Kathleen Pegion
The 2016 Southeastern U.S. Drought: An Extreme Departure From Centennial Wetting and Cooling Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres A. Park Williams, Benjamin I. Cook, Jason E. Smerdon, Daniel A. Bishop, Richard Seager, Justin S. Mankin
EEE 2011: Did Human Influence On Climate Make The 2011 Texas Drought More Probable? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society David Rupp, Philip Mote, Neil Massey, Cameron Rye, Richard Jones, and Myles Allen
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
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: Hurricane Sandy Inundation Probabilities Today and Tomorrow Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society William Sweet, Chris Zervas, Stephen Gill, and Joseph Park
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: Likelihood Of July 2012 U.S. Temperatures In Preindustrial And Current Forcing Regimes Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Noah S. Diffenbaugh and Martin Scherer
EEE 2013: Seasonal- and annual-mean precipitation extremes occurring during 2013: A U.S. focused analysis Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng, and Andrew T. Wittenberg
EEE 2013: Causes of the Extreme Dry Conditions Over California During Early 2013 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Hailan Wang and Siegfried Schubert
EEE 2014: Investigating the Influence of Anthropogenic Forcing and Natural Variability on the 2014 Hawaiian Hurricane Season Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Hiroyuki Murakami, Gabriel A. Vecchi, Thomas L. Delworth, Karen Paffendorf, Richard Gudgel, Liwei Jia, and Fanrong Zeng
EEE 2014: Human Contribution to the 2014 Record High Sea Surface Temperatures Over the Western Tropical And Northeast Pacific Ocean Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Evan Weller, Seung-Ki Min, Donghyun Lee, Wenju Cai, Sang-Wook Yeh, and Jong-Seong Kug
EEE 2015: Record Low Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Extent in March 2015 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Neven S. Fučkar, François Massonnet, Virginie Guemas, Javier García-Serrano, Omar Bellprat, Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes, and Mario Acosta
EEE 2015: The Role of Arctic Sea Ice and Sea Surface Temperatures on the Cold 2015 February Over North America Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Omar Bellprat, François Massonnet, Javier García-Serrano, Neven S. Fučkar, Virginie Guemas, and Francisco J. Doblas-Reyes
EEE 2015: The 2014/15 Snowpack Drought in Washington State and its Climate Forcing Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Boniface O. Fosu, S.-Y. Simon Wang, and Jin-Ho Yoon
EEE 2015: An Assessment of the Role of Anthropogenic Climate Change in the Alaska Fire Season of 2015 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society James L. Partain Jr., Sharon Alden, Uma S. Bhatt, Peter A. Bieniek, Brian R. Brettschneider, Rick T. Lader, Peter Q. Olsson, T. Scott Rupp, Heidi Strader, Richard L. Thoman Jr., John E. Walsh, Alison D. York, and Robert H. Ziel
EEE 2015: Multimodel Assessment of Anthropogenic Influence on Record Global and Regional Warmth During 2015 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Jonghun Kam, Thomas R. Knutson, Fanrong Zeng, and Andrew T. Wittenberg
EEE 2016: Anthropogenic Forcings and Associated Changes in Fire Risk in Western North America and Australia During 2015/16 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Simon F. B. Tett, Alexander Falk, Megan Rogers, Fiona Spuler, Calum Turner, Joshua Wainwright, Oscar Dimdore-Miles, Sam Knight, Nicolas Freychet, Michael J. Mineter, and Caroline E. R. Lehmann