Science Panel Supports Link Between Extreme Weather and Climate Change
The nation’s leading scientific advisory panel has released a report supporting a burgeoning scientific field that may help hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the damage caused by extreme weather events. This discipline, known as extreme event attribution, aims to determine the extent to which recent heat waves, heavy rains, droughts, or wildfires have been exacerbated by climate change.
Scientists have long recognized that global warming, driven by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, intensifies certain types of extreme weather. Only in the past twenty years, however, have they developed tools to estimate precisely how much global warming influences specific weather events in various regions.
The recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine does not provide recommendations on the application of attribution science in policy or legal contexts. Nonetheless, it acknowledges that attribution findings could be pertinent in various legal cases. For example, Multnomah County in Oregon cited an attribution study in a $50 billion lawsuit against oil companies. The study concluded that the extreme heat wave experienced in the Pacific Northwest during the summer of 2021 would have been “virtually impossible” without human-induced climate change.
As more states and local governments file similar lawsuits, supporters of the fossil-fuel industry have criticized scientists who perform attribution analyses, alleging they are activists against oil producers. Recently, Energy in Depth, a project from the Independent Petroleum Association of America, suggested that the National Academies report should be viewed as “the latest deliverable in a well-funded litigation campaign.”
The National Academies report highlights that methods for extreme event attribution have “considerably” advanced in recent years. Researchers are now utilizing more sophisticated techniques and improved data, which enables them to assess with greater certainty how much the intense temperatures during a specific heat event can be attributed to human actions rather than natural atmospheric variance.
This development underscores the potential role of scientific research in shaping legal and policy responses to climate-related challenges.