A new report by the United States’ top science advisory body examines how confidently scientists can attribute specific extreme weather and climate events to human-caused climate change, a central issue in many lawsuits seeking major damages from fossil fuel companies. Published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), the 254-page assessment updates a 2016 NASEM evaluation with revised findings on event attribution methods.
The report indicates that attribution is more reliable for some types of events than others. It says scientists can make high-confidence links for certain phenomena, including heat waves and heavy rainfall, where observations and physical understanding better support the connection to a warming planet. For other categories of extreme weather, the report describes lower levels of certainty, reflecting differences in event characteristics, available data, and the strength of scientific evidence.
By clarifying where attribution is strongest or weaker, the report is presented as potentially relevant to how courts and litigants evaluate claims that extreme events and their impacts are influenced by greenhouse-gas emissions.
