Reconciling two approaches to attribution of the 2010 Russian heat wave
Abstract
In the summer 2010 Western Russia was hit by an extraordinary heat wave, with the region experiencing by far the warmest July since records began. Whether and to what extent this event is attributable to anthropogenic climate change is controversial. Dole et al. (2011) report the 2010 Russian heat wave was “mainly natural in origin” whereas Rahmstorf and Coumou (2011) write that with a probability of 80% “the 2010 July heat record would not have occurred” without the large‐scale climate warming since 1980, most of which has been attributed to the anthropogenic increase in greenhouse gas concentrations. The latter explicitly state that their results “contradict those of Dole et al. (2011).” Here we use the results from a large ensemble simulation experiment with an atmospheric general circulation model to show that there is no substantive contradiction between these two papers, in that the same event can be both mostly internally‐generated in terms of magnitude and mostly externally‐driven in terms of occurrence‐probability. The difference in conclusion between these two papers illustrates the importance of specifying precisely what question is being asked in addressing the issue of attribution of individual weather events to external drivers of climate.
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Because of climate change, extreme weather is more generally on the rise, making extreme weather events more frequent, intense, and complex.
“we do know that because of climate change, extreme weather is more generally on the rise, making extreme weather events more frequent, intense, and complex.”
From Climate change and mental health: risks, impacts and priority actions (2018) · cites this paper as [50]
It cannot be said with certainty that any one specific extreme weather event is directly caused by climate change.
“while we cannot say with certainty that any one specific extreme weather event is directly caused by climate change”
From Climate change and mental health: risks, impacts and priority actions (2018) · cites this paper as [50]
There is an increasingly strong body of literature highlighting causal linkages between climate change and extreme weather events.
“There is now an increasingly strong body of literature which highlights the causal linkages between climate change and extreme weather events (see [45–50]).”
From Climate change and mental health: risks, impacts and priority actions (2018) · cites this paper as [50]
Cites
Global surface temperature change
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Anthropogenic greenhouse gas contribution to flood risk in England and Wales in autumn 2000
Pall, P., Aina, T., Stone, D. A., Stott, P. A., Nozawa, T., Hilberts, A. G. J., Lohmann, D., & Allen, M. R. (2011) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature09762 · Cited by 871 · see citing works
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Coumou, D., & Rahmstorf, S. (2012) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate1452 · Cited by 2,289 · see citing works
Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health
Watts, N., Adger, W. N., Agnolucci, P., Blackstock, J., Byass, P., Cai, W., Chaytor, S., Colbourn, T., Collins, M., Cooper, A., et al. (2015) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(15)60854-6 · Cited by 2,055 · see citing works
Anthropogenic contribution to global occurrence of heavy-precipitation and high-temperature extremes
Fischer, E. M., & Knutti, R. (2015) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate2617 · Cited by 1,427 · see citing works
Attribution of climate extreme events
Trenberth, K. E., Fasullo, J. T., & Shepherd, T. G. (2015) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/nclimate2657 · Cited by 982 · see citing works
Attribution of extreme weather and climate‐related events
Stott, P. A., Christidis, N., Otto, F. E. L., Sun, Y., Vanderlinden, J., van Oldenborgh, G. J., Vautard, R., von Storch, H., Walton, P., Yiou, P., et al. (2016) · WIREs Climate Change · doi:10.1002/wcc.380 · Cited by 781 · see citing works
Self-citationMagnitude of extreme heat waves in present climate and their projection in a warming world
Russo, S., Dosio, A., Graversen, R. G., Sillmann, J., Carrao, H., Dunbar, M. B., Singleton, A., Montagna, P., Barbola, P., & Vogt, J. V. (2014) · Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres · doi:10.1002/2014jd022098 · Cited by 754 · see citing works
Climate change and mental health: risks, impacts and priority actions
Hayes, K., Blashki, G., Wiseman, J., Burke, S., & Reifels, L. (2018) · International Journal of Mental Health Systems · doi:10.1186/s13033-018-0210-6 · Cited by 746 · see citing works
Detection and attribution of climate extremes in the observed record
Easterling, D. R., Kunkel, K. E., Wehner, M. F., & Sun, L. (2016) · Weather and Climate Extremes · doi:10.1016/j.wace.2016.01.001 · Cited by 218 · see citing works
Attribution of Weather and Climate Events
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Self-citationLewandowsky, S., Cook, J., & Lloyd, E. (2018) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1198-6 · Cited by 151 · see citing works
Deep Learning-Based Extreme Heatwave Forecast
Jacques-Dumas, V., Ragone, F., Borgnat, P., Abry, P., & Bouchet, F. (2022) · Frontiers in Climate · doi:10.3389/fclim.2022.789641 · Cited by 92 · see citing works
“At Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, relevant such examples were observed over Western Europe during the summer 2003 with a death toll of about 70, 000 [2], or over Russia during the summer 2010 [3, 4], or”
BackgroundGalfi, V. M., & Lucarini, V. (2021) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.127.058701 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
Seasonal prediction of European summer heatwaves
Prodhomme, C., Materia, S., Ardilouze, C., White, R. H., Batté, L., Guemas, V., Fragkoulidis, G., & García-Serrano, J. (2022) · Climate Dynamics · doi:10.1007/s00382-021-05828-3 · Cited by 63 · see citing works
- Authors
- Otto, F. E. L., Massey, N., van Oldenborgh, G. J., Jones, R. G., & Allen, M. R.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Met Office (GB)
- Venue
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Publisher
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)
- Published
- 2012-02
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 4
- ISSN
- 0094-8276 (ISSN-L)
- 1944-8007
- OpenAlex
- W1497571021
- Cited by
- 461
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 57 · 2020: 58 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 39 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 31 · 2015: 30 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 21.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Geophysical Research Letters (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Natural Environment Research Council (NE/H003525/1)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate variability and models
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Meteorological Phenomena and Simulations
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Climate Change and Environmental Impact
- Keywords
- anthropogenic climate change, natural climate variability, large ensemble simulations, atmospheric general circulation model, probability of occurrence, greenhouse gas forcing
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