Daily Archives: October 12, 2026

Weather events result from an interaction of many factors, including current conditions of the atmosphere. Weather is considered extreme when it’s far outside of normal for a particular place and time. Weather-related extreme events include heat waves, freezes, heavy downpours and tornadoes. Attributing an extreme weather event to the observed climate change is referred to as the science of extreme event attribution.

Researchers take two complementary approaches to explore the cause-and-effect relationship between climate change and extreme weather. One method analyzes the statistics of how often a type of extreme event occurs in our current climate with how often the event occurred in a climate without human-caused climate change. This approach relies on improved climate model simulations. The other approach examines how climate change has altered the characteristics of the event. As an example, heat waves have become hotter because the atmosphere has warmed. Continue reading →