California Archives - Climate Attribution

A call to refine fire attribution: expanding the FAR statistic to capture the complexity of Los Angeles extreme fires

Published:August 2025

Author(s):Chris Huntingford, Douglas I Kelley and Maria L F Barbosa

Publisher:Environmental Research Letters

This perspective examines the causes of the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, including climate change, human land use, campfires, faulty powerlines, and other human-driven factors, and suggests improvements to statistical analyses.Read More →

Exploring Spatial Heterogeneity in Synergistic Effects of Compound Climate Hazards: Extreme Heat and Wildfire Smoke on Cardiorespiratory Hospitalizations in California

Published:February 2024

Author(s):Chen Chen, Laura Schwarz, Noam Rosenthal, Miriam E. Marlier, Tarik Benmarhnia

Publisher:Science Advances

In this peer-reviewed study, the authors used high-resolution satellite and monitoring data to quantify the way that compound exposures to extreme heat and wildfire smoke in California (2006–2019) varied between ZIP codes.Read More →

Constraining Sector-Specific CO2 Fluxes Using Space-Based XCO2 Observations Over the Los Angeles Basin

Published:November 2023

Author(s):Dustin Roten, John C. Lin, Saswati Das, Eric A. Kort

Publisher:Geophysical Research Letters

This peer-reviewed study uses NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory to study sector-specific CO2 emissions in the Los Angeles Basin between January 2020 and December 2021.Read More →

Climate change is increasing the risk of a California megaflood

Published:August 2022

Author(s):Xingying Huang and Daniel Swain

Publisher:Science Advances

This peer-reviewed study uses climate modeling to find that climate change has already doubled the likelihood of an event capable of producing catastrophic flooding in California. Read More →

Atmospheric River Precipitation Enhanced by Climate Change: A Case Study of the Storm That Contributed to California’s Oroville Dam Crisis

Published:February 2022

Author(s):Allison C. Michaelis, Alexander Gershunov, Alexander Weyant, Meredith A. Fish, Tamara Shulgina, F. Martin Ralph

Publisher:Earth's Future

This study assesses how climate change impacts atmospheric river precipitation.Read More →

The association between wildfire exposure in pregnancy and foetal gastroschisis: A population-based cohort study

Published:November 2021

Author(s):Bo Young Park, Ian Boles, Samira Monavvari, Shivani Patel, Arriel Alvarez, Mie Phan, Maria Perez, Ruofan Yao

Publisher:Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology

The objective of this study was to determine the association between wildfire exposure before and during pregnancy and the risk of foetal gastroschisis development.Read More →

Wildfire response to changing daily temperature extremes in California’s Sierra Nevada

Published:November 2021

Author(s):Aurora A. Gutierrez, Stijn Hantson, Baird Langenbrunner, Bin Chen, Yufang Jin, Michael L. Goulden, and James T. Randerson

Publisher:ScienceAdvances

This study quantifies the sensitivity of wildfire occurrence and burned area in the Sierra Nevada to daily meteorological variables during 2001–2020.Read More →

Increasing large wildfires over the western United States linked to diminishing sea ice in the Arctic

Published:October 2021

Author(s):Yufei Zou, Philip J. Rasch, Hailong Wang, Zuowei Xie, & Rudong Zhang

Publisher:Nature Communications

This study shows that increasing large wildfires during autumn over the western U.S. are fueled by more fire-favorable weather associated with declines in Arctic sea ice. Arctic sea iceRead More →

NOAA Drought Task Force Report on the 2020–2021 Southwestern U.S. Drought

Published:September 2021

Author(s):NOAA Drought Task Force IV

Publisher:NOAA

This report analyses the causes of the 2020–21 U.S. Southwest drought.Read More →

Anthropogenic climate change has altered lake state in the Sierra Nevada (California, USA)

Published:September 2021

Author(s):Laura C. Streib, Jeffery R. Stone, Eva C. Lyon, Hung H. Quang, Kevin M. Yeager, Susan R. H. Zimmerman, Michael M. McGlue

Publisher:Global Change Biology

This study illustrates the profound influence of anthropogenic climate warming on high-elevation lakes and the ecosystem services they provide in the Sierra Nevada.Read More →