A
new four-step “framework” aims to test the contribution of climate change to
record-setting extreme weather events.
BY KER THAN, Stanford University
After
an unusually intense heat wave, downpour or drought, Noah Diffenbaugh and
his research group inevitably receive phone calls and emails asking whether
human-caused climate change played a role.
“The question is being asked by the general
public and by people trying to make decisions about how to manage the risks of
a changing climate,” said Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science at
Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental
Sciences.
“Getting an accurate answer is important for everything from
farming to insurance premiums, to international supply chains, to
infrastructure planning.”
In
the past, scientists typically avoided linking individual weather events to
climate change, citing the challenges of teasing apart human influence from the
natural variability of the weather. But that is changing.
