How to provide useful attribution statements - Lessons learned from operationalising event attribution in Europe

Abstract

In the immediate aftermath of an extreme weather or climate-related event, the question is invariably asked whether and to what extent it was influenced by anthropogenic climate change. As a trusted source of weather information, National Meteorological Services (NMSs) in particular are facing this question and given their status as government services they are expected to answer, leading to calls for operationalising event attribution studies. Under the umbrella of Copernicus, the European climate service provider, a team of scientists and several national Met Services started a pilot project, following established protocols (van Oldenborgh et al. 2021; Philip et al. 2020) to test whether the task of attributing individual weather extremes can now be taken over by an operational service for the simpler extremes (cold and hot extremes, large-scale heavy rainfall).