{"id":18912,"date":"2016-03-16T13:31:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T18:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18912"},"modified":"2016-03-16T13:31:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T18:31:55","slug":"in-depth-the-scientific-challenge-of-extreme-weather-attribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18912","title":{"rendered":"In-depth: the scientific challenge of extreme weather attribution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In-depth: the scientific challenge of extreme weather attribution<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Lightning<\/p>\n

\u00a9 Gene Blevins\/LA Daily News<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Working out whether human activity is supercharging extreme events, such as floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves, is one of the youngest branches of climate science. But it\u2019s moving at breakneck pace.<\/p>\n

So much so, that the US\u00a0National Academy of Sciences<\/a>\u00a0has fast-tracked a\u00a0report<\/a>, published today, taking stock of the science and where it\u2019s heading.<\/p>\n

Event attribution is the field of science that asks if\u00a0extreme weather around the world would look any different if we could replay the last 200 years or so, without human-caused greenhouse gases.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s report is an overview, rather than a showcase for new results. And at about 150\u00a0pages long, it\u2019s not a light read. But its weightiness is apt for a topic that has come to underpin climate conversations everywhere from\u00a0flooding in the UK<\/a>\u00a0to climate change adaptation.<\/p>\n

Carbon Brief has been speaking to key scientists in the world of attribution about how far the science has come, experimenting with communicating the nuances, and the thorny issue of making results public at lightning speed, often before peer review.<\/p>\n

One thing is for sure,\u00a0Dr Heidi Cullen<\/a>, chief scientist at Climate Central and a contributor to today\u2019s report, tells Carbon Brief:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days of saying no single weather event can be linked to climate change are over. For many extreme weather events, the link is now strong.\u201d<\/div>\n

\u2018A universal talking point\u2019<\/h4>\n

Storms, droughts, heavy rain, heatwaves and other extreme weather events are of huge interest to society because of their often disastrous consequences for people and property.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Prof Ted Shepherd<\/a>, professor of climate science at the University of Reading in the UK, explains in a recent\u00a0commentary<\/a>\u00a0in the journal Current Climate Change Reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as weather is a topic of daily conversation, extreme weather events\u2026provide a universal talking point.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In-depth: the scientific challenge of extreme weather attribution \u00a9 Gene Blevins\/LA Daily News Working out whether human activity is supercharging extreme events, such as floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves, is one of the youngest branches of climate science. But it\u2019s moving at breakneck pace. So much so, that the US\u00a0National Academy of Sciences\u00a0has fast-tracked a\u00a0report, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10797,141,2956,288,386,12977,9191],"class_list":["post-18912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-carbon-brief","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-science","tag-extreme-weather","tag-greenhouse-gases","tag-roz-pidcock","tag-us-national-academy-of-sciences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18913,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18912\/revisions\/18913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}