1,3,4,6,6,7,8,9,10,1,9,11- 1Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- 2University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
- 3Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz-Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany
- 4Bureau of Meteorology, Melbourne, Australia
- 5Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, London, UK
- 6Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), De Bilt, The Netherlands
- 7Oxford e-Research Centre, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, UK
- 8Hadley Centre, Met Office, Exeter, UK
- 9National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- 10Earth System Predictability Section, Research Department, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Reading, UK
- 11Climate X Ltd., London, UK
Since 2004, many methods for event attribution have been developed. Early studies showed that attribution statements are sensitive to the framing of research questions but few large comparisons have been undertaken.
Here, we firstly motivate the need for multi-method extreme event attribution, highlighting conceptual differences between methods. In a second part, we present a case study of midlatitude storm Babet (2023) to compare three common storyline attribution methods, alongside a severity-based probabilistic method. We discuss three widely relevant questions which highlight the complementarity and the differences between methods: (1) How has climate change impacted the frequency of the event? (2) How has climate change impacted the event severity? (3) Were the dynamics of the event influenced by climate change and if yes, how?
We show that methods differ in the extent to which they reproduce observed weather patterns. This influences attribution statements, and can even change the sign of results for events with uncertain climate signals. We argue that limitations and strengths of methods need to be clearly communicated when presenting event attribution reports to ensure findings can be used reliably by a wide range of stakeholders.
How to cite: Ermis, S., Thompson, V., Athanase, M., Zhou, L., Clarke, B., de Vries, H., Lenderink, G., Hope, P., Kew, S., Sparrow, S., Lott, F., Weisheimer, A., and Leach, N.: Multi-method extreme event attribution: Motivation, case study, and implications, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-4082, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-4082, 2026.
