Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record
Abstract
We present an overview of practices and challenges related to the detection and attribution of observed changes in climate extremes. Detection is the identification of a statistically significant change in the extreme values of a climate variable over some period of time. Issues in detection discussed include data quality, coverage, and completeness. Attribution takes that detection of a change and uses climate model simulations to evaluate whether a cause can be assigned to that change. Additionally, we discuss a newer field of attribution, event attribution, where individual extreme events are analyzed for the express purpose of assigning some measure of whether that event was directly influenced by anthropogenic forcing of the climate system.
- Authors:
-
- NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, Asheville, NC (United States). Center for Weather and Climate
- Cooperative Inst. for Climate and Satellites (CICS-NC), Asheville, NC (United States); North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States); NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, Asheville, NC (United States)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1379116
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; W912HQ-15-C-0010
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Weather and Climate Extremes
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 11; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 2212-0947
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES; Observed climate change; Extremes; Detection; Attribution
Citation Formats
Easterling, David R., Kunkel, Kenneth E., Wehner, Michael F., and Sun, Liqiang. Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.wace.2016.01.001.
Easterling, David R., Kunkel, Kenneth E., Wehner, Michael F., & Sun, Liqiang. Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2016.01.001
Easterling, David R., Kunkel, Kenneth E., Wehner, Michael F., and Sun, Liqiang. Mon .
"Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2016.01.001. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1379116.
@article{osti_1379116,
title = {Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record},
author = {Easterling, David R. and Kunkel, Kenneth E. and Wehner, Michael F. and Sun, Liqiang},
abstractNote = {We present an overview of practices and challenges related to the detection and attribution of observed changes in climate extremes. Detection is the identification of a statistically significant change in the extreme values of a climate variable over some period of time. Issues in detection discussed include data quality, coverage, and completeness. Attribution takes that detection of a change and uses climate model simulations to evaluate whether a cause can be assigned to that change. Additionally, we discuss a newer field of attribution, event attribution, where individual extreme events are analyzed for the express purpose of assigning some measure of whether that event was directly influenced by anthropogenic forcing of the climate system.},
doi = {10.1016/j.wace.2016.01.001},
journal = {Weather and Climate Extremes},
number = C,
volume = 11,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jan 18 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Mon Jan 18 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}
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