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Climate attribution science improves as models face political scrutiny
Attribution researchers say they can now estimate, during ongoing events, how much human caused greenhouse gases worsened heat and humidity extremes.
Back to back heat waves in the US and Europe are boosting demand for faster climate models that link climate change to extreme weather, according to Insurance Journal. The outlet says so-called attribution science is becoming more useful to policymakers and commercial stakeholders such as insurers as improved computing and scientific understanding make results more actionable.
Insurance Journal reports that researchers can assess how much worse an extreme event was because of human-caused warming by running computer simulations that compare a world with fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions against a counterfactual without them. The publication points to the eastern US heat wave earlier in the month, where researchers with World Weather Attribution found the combination of high temperatures and high humidity would have been virtually impossible without greenhouse gases.
As models get more precise, some experts expect the science to be used more often in court to support claims for financial liability tied to climate damage, Insurance Journal adds. The outlet also notes that the field is facing growing political efforts to challenge credibility, including scrutiny around an upcoming landmark US National Academies report scheduled for July 16.
Insurance Journal says some political figures have targeted the broader use of climate models, referencing a May comment by US President Donald Trump that certain climate models were wrong, which prompted scientists to defend their value. The report describes a wider trend of increased political scrutiny as climate modeling advances.