WASHINGTON-A new, bold peer-reviewed commentary led by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and published today in Nature's Climate Action journal, argues that scientists should begin extreme weather attribution studies from the premise that human-caused climate change has already fundamentally altered today's climate and plays a role in most extreme weather and climate events, unless clear evidence shows otherwise.

Attribution science uses climate models to quantify the role fossil-fueled climate change plays in extreme weather events, long-term climate trends and their real-world consequences. Extreme event attribution, in particular, has advanced rapidly over recent decades, and the authors argue that the field is ready to move forward.

"Every hurricane, drought and wildfire now occurs in a climate system that's been fundamentally changed by human activity," said Dr. Marc Alessi, climate scientist at UCS and lead author of the commentary. "Instead of asking whether climate change contributed to an extreme weather event, this should be the starting assumption, thus shifting the burden of proof of fossil fuel influence away from scientists and onto fossil fuel producers to prove otherwise. This change would better align attribution science with physical reality and free up scientific resources for other work."

According to the authors, this shift would make attribution science more useful for combatting climate disinformation and advancing climate justice.

"Attribution science is a key piece of scientific evidence for holding polluters accountable," said Dr. Carly Phillips, senior scientist with the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at UCS and commentary co-author. "The fossil fuel industry has a long history of sowing doubt about climate change, and their baseless attacks on attribution science serve the same purpose: protecting their profits and evading accountability leaving communities to bear the costs."

The commentary focuses on establishing a normative shift for the types of events where the influence of climate change is already well established, including extreme heat, heavy rainfall, tropical cyclone rainfall and wildfire weather. It also aligns with scientific shifts that occurred in other areas of science, such as work linking smoking cigarettes and lung cancer in the 20th century. Now, if a patient who was a former smoker develops lung cancer, it is assumed-based on the wealth of supporting scientific evidence-that the smoking caused their lung cancer.

Please contact UCS Media Director Ashley Siefert Nunes to set up interviews with Drs. Alessi or Phillips.