Reacción a "Reactions to study attributing heatwaves to climate change and warning that their impact is greater than believed"

Dr Friederike Otto is a pioneer in near-real-time attribution studies of extreme weather events. Attribution studies determine the role of climate change in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heat waves or tropical cyclones. This requires two essential sources of information. On the one hand, numerical simulations capable of reproducing the observed extreme event and, on the other hand, observations that allow the different aspects of the event to be characterised.

Limited access to observations has limited and continues to limit further attribution studies to prepare affected sectors for increasingly frequent and intense weather extremes, a consequence of ongoing anthropogenic climate change.

This paper comprehensively reviews the role of anthropogenic climate change in extreme weather and climate events. While the attribution of increased frequency, intensity and duration of heatwaves to climate change has high confidence in many regions of the world (including the Mediterranean), the attribution of intense precipitation events (and often associated floods) to climate change is more doubtful in most cases.

For other types of events, such as droughts, forest fires or tropical cyclones, there is even less confidence in their attribution to climate change and more studies are needed in different regions of the globe.