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 In recent years, scientists have become more adept at working out
whether climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions is
exacerbating wild weather and its impacts around the world, but the
task usually takes months.
"In the media, we are seeing this notion that you cannot attribute
any individual events to climate change, but in fact the science has
really evolved over the past decade," said Heidi Cullen, chief
scientist with Climate Central.
The U.S.-based non-profit science journalism organization is leading
the initiative to speed up that analysis alongside the Red Cross Red
Crescent Climate Centre, scientists at Oxford University, the Royal
Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and others.
A review of 16 major weather events in 2013, released on Monday,
found that human-caused climate change clearly increased the
severity and likelihood of five heatwaves studied - including in
Australia, Japan and China.
For other events like droughts, heavy rain and storms, pinning down
the influence of human activity was more challenging, the
researchers said. Human-caused climate change sometimes played a
role, but its effect was often less clear, suggesting natural
factors were far more dominant.
Back in 2004, a team of British scientists made a splash with a
paper estimating that human influence had at least doubled the risk
of a heatwave like the one that caused tens of thousands of deaths
in continental Europe in the summer of 2003.
Since then, the demand to know whether emissions from burning fossil
fuels are exacerbating climate and weather extremes has risen, and
climate scientists are responding.
This week's review from the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society was the third such annual study. And in 2011, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report
saying it was "likely" - a two-thirds chance or more - that maximum
and minimum daily temperatures around the globe had already
increased because of human influences, as had sea levels and coastal
high waters.
'FIRST, BEST ANSWER'
Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate
Centre, said that 10 years ago the Red Cross would not have
mentioned climate change in its statements to the media about
weather-related disasters. But that is different today "because
people recognize that the science is so much stronger".
"There's a bigger perception that it's important to know about
changing risks - also in the context of recovery and reconstruction
(after disasters)," van Aalst said.
The scientists involved in the new attribution initiative are
developing a faster system using sophisticated climate models,
combined with evidence from historical observations and previous
research, that should enable them to say publicly within a couple of
days of an extreme weather event happening whether it was made more
likely by climate change.
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In some cases, there may be no link, and in others, the connection
may be weak or uncertain - and that will be clearly stated, van
Aalst said. So far, scientists have found it easier to establish
climate change links with natural hazards directly driven by
temperature and rising seas, like heatwaves or the storm surge
responsible for most of the deaths and destruction when super
typhoon Haiyan smashed into the Philippines last November.
But with floods and droughts, which are driven by rainfall, skills
are still "emerging", Climate Central's Cullen said.
The goal of the new initiative will be to come up with a "first,
best answer to the question when (it) is really on the top of
people's minds" - whether they are journalists, emergency
responders, policy makers or affected people. "We really want to
make sure we get the answer right," she emphasized.
TRANSPARENT AND NEUTRAL
To that end, transparency will be key, and tools will be available
so users of the information can understand how it was produced. The
events analyzed will be selected according to clear criteria to rule
out "cherry picking", Cullen added.
The aim is to cover developing countries, as well as industrialized
nations where climate science is better resourced.
Both scientists stressed that the new system must be accepted as
scientifically sound and politically neutral. That will be
especially important in countries like the United States and
Australia, where the issue of climate change is divisive and large
political and business lobbies oppose curbs on emissions.
"What we propose is not an activist campaign to convince people that
climate change is the worst problem in the world," said van Aalst.
"It's about providing honest information that some risks are
changing significantly and we need to do something about that."
(Reporting by Megan Rowling; editing by Tim Pearce)
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