Attribution Science and Climate Fingerprints

Our Attribution Science and Climate Fingerprints program uses statistical methods to quantify whether and to what extent human-caused climate change altered the likelihood of specific weather events.

Through attribution science, scientists are able to identify weather conditions that are becoming more common due to human-caused climate change, allowing the public to adapt, prepare for these conditions, and manage their impacts. It also emphasizes the urgent need to reduce carbon pollution in order to prevent climate-related impacts from growing worse.

Our team works with global partners to develop techniques that quantify climate fingerprints in daily weather and extreme events worldwide, and to communicate these linkages. Our goal is to inform people about the realities of climate change and to catalyze changes that reduce impacts in the near and long term. 

Climate Shift Index®

The Climate Shift Index (CSI), Climate Central’s daily temperature attribution system, applies the latest peer-reviewed methodology to map the influence of climate change on temperatures across the globe, every day. Learn more here. 

Resources

Climate events analysis: Our team identifies, analyzes, and tracks notable climate events around the world. Explore our collection of recent analyses. 

World Weather Attribution: We partner with this collective of scientists that conducts in-depth studies on attribution. Their work quantifies how climate change influences the intensity and likelihood of an extreme weather event, and how existing vulnerabilities worsened the impacts.