However, attribution scientists take many steps to avoid overstating the importance of climate change for a given event. They look at a wide variety of data from many sources and often use mathematical tools that are more likely to underestimate than overestimate the role of climate change. And it’s for good reason: In a field focused on communicating with the public, trust is an invaluable currency, says Leo Barasi, a public opinion and climate change expert who works with researchers and advocates said. Talking openly about negative outcomes can also highlight how important and prominent a positive outcome is. “It is really important to speak openly, openly and proudly about negative outcomes,” says Barasi.
And while it’s difficult to know for certain how extreme event distribution has impacted public sentiment on the climate crisis, Barasi thinks it plays an important role. In 2018, people across the Northern Hemisphere endured the extreme heat of summer, and a lot of learn found that climate change has made those heat waves more frequent. In Japan, those temperatures would be nearly impossible without the effects of climate change, according to one research. At the same time, public discourse has undergone a remarkable change — in both WE and UK, polls show concern about climate change increased in late 2018. While this time period also coincides with the arrival of Greta Thunberg on the international stage, Barasi believes inclement weather may also play a part. “It’s the firsthand experience of an extreme weather event, combined with the widely accepted reliable science around it, that I think is really important,” he said.
Much of the power of extreme event attribution comes from its ability to address the direct experience of people who have suffered through specific heat waves or floods — their hyperlocality. But this also has its downside. Roop Singh, climate risk advisor with the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center, says most attribution studies look at events in the Global North. “Of course, scientists have their own interests and they care about what’s happening in their backyard,” she said.
But extreme weather can have the most severe effects in the very least noticeable areas. “There are communities around the world that are more directly dependent on natural resources, they are more exposed to weather and climate conditions,” says Deepti Singh. These disproportionate effects prompted Singh to conduct research focusing on his native India, where poor rural populations are particularly vulnerable.
Slowing climate change is important in mitigating those impacts – but addressing other factors that cause them, such as poverty and underdevelopment, is more likely to make an important difference in saving lives and livelihoods. “For example, the fact that heat waves are deadly is because we don’t care about poor people in squalid homes with potential health problems,” says Otto. “It’s not about climate change.”
These impacts depend on structural issues, not to mention a range of potential factors — a heatwave is more deadly to a retirement community than a college town, for example. So it can be difficult to link climate change to the specific impacts that are most important to humans. But scientists have already begun to make progress. Recently, for example, Diffenbaugh publish a study Linking climate change to the financial costs of reduced crop yields. Again study abroad this year concluded that, worldwide, 37% of heat-related deaths can be attributed to climate change.
Roop Singh said: “The impacts come from the context of the disaster occurring. “Extreme event allocation starts the conversation. But for us to really answer those questions, we really need a lot more scientific research.”
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