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Topic

Climate change attribution

Scientific field using statistical and climate-model methods to assess how much human-caused warming contributed to specific extreme weather events or trends.

Current stories

scienceOne report1 publisher

UCLA study attributes twice as much of 2024's record rain to warming as to El Niño

UCLA researchers report that global days of heavy rain in 2024 ran 20% above baseline, a record that topped 1983, 1998 and 2016. They tie 40% of the increase to global warming and say conditions favor another record in 2027.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Nepal's debris flow began 5,150 metres up as a 2.2-square-kilometre slab of bedrock

Satellite images of the August 26 collapse show a fresh, uniform scar high on Langtang Lirung's north face. The volume researchers estimate from it, about 110 million cubic metres, averages roughly 50 metres of rock and ice.

Publishers:sciencenews.org

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
scienceOne report1 publisher

Nepal's Rasuwa flood request tests a UN loss and damage fund built around scheduled windows

Nepal is still waiting on the UN loss and damage fund a month after Rasuwa floods killed more than 1,400 people and left a rebuild costing almost $5 billion. How the fund weighs climate change's role, which it has yet to decide, will shape how fast vulnerable countries get paid.

Publishers:nature.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence40
scienceConfirmed3 publishers

El Nino's daily Pacific anomaly reached 3.08 C in September, months before its expected peak

Science News reports the El Nino region's daily sea surface anomaly hit 3.08 C on September 21, past the 3.02 C mark set in November 2015. NOAA's preferred index still ranks the 1997-98 event stronger, leaving two analogues in play for the coming seasons.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 18%
Operator
Operator 54%
Investor
Investor 28%

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence68
scienceOne report1 publisher

Kearny lost 85 percent of its Gila River allotment after a 1 percent snowpack

Kearny, Arizona, draws from the Gila River, and its own river commissioner made this cut. The federal Colorado River reductions that dominate Southwest water policy do not govern what the town of 2,000 receives.

Publishers:sciencenews.org

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+14
Incentives24
Confidence64
scienceConfirmed6 publishers

Nepal's deluge began as a glacier falling a kilometre into a river it then dammed

Satellite and seismic analyses point to ice that snapped off above 5,000 metres, blocked the Lhende Khola and burst through hours later. Almost no rain preceded it, which is why the region's flood warning tools had nothing to read.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 43%
Operator
Operator 38%
Investor
Investor 19%

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption62
Hype gap−8
Incentives34
Confidence70
scienceConfirmed6 publishers

Thirteen Galápagos corals put recent El Niños about 40% above their preindustrial strength

Coral chemistry from the eastern tropical Pacific has finally put a number on how much warming has strengthened El Niño. The natural-forcing alternative fails the test the same authors ran.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 47%
Operator
Operator 41%
Investor
Investor 12%

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+22
Incentives58
Confidence74
investOne report1 publisher

Nepal's glacier collapse highlights growing flood risk as Asia's 95,000 glaciers melt rapidly

The flood along the Nepal-China border came out of ice and rock rather than rain, and the same researchers who count 95,000 Asian glaciers expect up to three quarters of them gone by 2100, which makes this a siting question well before it is a climate one.

Publishers:en.sedaily.com

Reality

Evidence32
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+28
Incentives45
Confidence38
scienceOne report1 publisher

A Greenland-to-Europe heat link that the models leave out, and nobody has priced

A preprint says meltwater pulses are bending the jet stream toward western European heatwaves. It offers no size for the resulting model error, and another group disputes the cause.

Publishers:newscientist.com

Reality

Evidence28
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+46
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence32
scienceOne report1 publisher

A 3.9C El Nino peak makes 2027 a stress test for plans built for the late 2030s

Forecasters see this El Nino peaking well above the 2015 event and pushing 2027 to roughly 1.76C above preindustrial. That is a decade of trend warming delivered in one year.

Publishers:phys.org

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption44
Hype gap+16
Incentives28
Confidence55