The links below provide additional, external resources relating to the science of climate change attribution, how the science relates to legal cases or defenses, and the role of science in a variety of climate mitigation and adaptation policies. To suggest a resource that should be included in this list or to report a broken link, contact climateattribution@law.columbia.edu or use the submission form on this website’s Contact page.
Climate Attribution Resources:
EPA’s Climate Change Indicators in the United States
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed more than 50 climate change indicators that show changes over time and include more than 100 figures as graphs and maps. EPA’s indicators provide evidence of these changes and their impacts on people and the environment. EPA partners with dozens of data contributors to compile and keep these indicators up to date.
Government-Led Attribution Resources
US Global Change Research Program
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established by Congress in 1990 to coordinate federal research and investments in understanding and responding to the forces shaping the global environment, both human and natural, and their impacts on society. As part of this program, USGCRP publishes regular “National Climate Assessment Reports,” which serve as the preeminent source of authoritative information on the risks, impacts, and responses to climate change in the United States. Read the Fifth National Climate Assessment report here.
IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) prepares comprehensive Assessment Reports about the state of scientific, technical and socio-economic knowledge on climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for reducing the rate at which climate change is taking place. The IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report was published in 2023.
Attribution Publications and Databases
Climate Signals
A nonprofit, nonpartisan project of Climate Nexus that curates climate change attribution science and provides resources in real time explaining how climate change worsens extreme events.
World Weather Attribution Project
Working with scientists around the world, World Weather Attribution (WWA) quantifies how climate change influences the intensity and likelihood of an extreme weather event in the immediate aftermath of the extreme event using weather observations and computer modelling. To encourage actions that will make communities and countries more resilient to future extreme weather events, WWA studies also evaluate how existing vulnerability worsened the impacts of the extreme weather event.
American Meteorological Society: Explaining Extreme Events from a Climate Perspective
This annual special report issued by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society presents assessments of how human-caused climate change may have affected the strength and likelihood of extreme events.
The Health Attribution Library
This database of scholarly literature, maintained by the Carson Lab at the Yale School of Public Health and the Climate Risk Lab at the University of Capetown, compiles studies that conduct “end-to-end” attribution studies on the human health impacts of human-caused climate change.
Exploring Climate Impacts
Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index
This interactive map, maintained by Climate Central, reveals how much climate change influences the temperature on a particular day. The Climate Shift Index (CSI) ranges from -5 to +5 with positive levels indicating temperatures that are becoming more likely due to climate change (negative scores indicate conditions that are becoming less likely). For levels at 2 or above, the Index is a multiple of how frequently a particular temperature will occur due to climate change. For example, a CSI of level 5 means that a temperature is occurring 5 times more frequently when compared to a world without human-caused carbon pollution. This temperature would be very difficult to encounter in a world without climate change–not necessarily impossible, just highly unlikely.
Climate Central’s Coastal Risk Screening Tool
This interactive map, maintained by Climate Central, shows areas threatened by sea level rise and coastal flooding. The map combines an advanced global model of coastal elevations with the latest projections for future flood levels.
Climate Attribution and the Law:
Science, Climate Litigation, and the Law
The Law and Science of Climate Change Attribution
The UCS Science Hub for Climate Litigation
Climate Science in the Courts
Weathering the Storm of Global Climate Litigation: Enabling Judges to Make Sense of Science
Attribution Science and Litigation: Facilitating Effective Legal Arguments and Strategies to Manage Climate Change Damages
Extreme Weather Event Attribution Science and Climate Change Litigation: An Essential Step in the Causal Chain?