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arXiv · 2406.12951

Reviewing climate change attribution in UK natural hazards and their impacts

Regan Mudhar·Dann M. Mitchell·Peter A. Stott·Richard A. Betts
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Abstract

The field of Detection and Attribution is rapidly moving beyond weather and climate, and towards incorporating hazards and their impacts on natural and human systems. Here, we review the comprehensive literature base relevant for the UK ahead of the next Climate Change Risk Assessment. The current literature highlights a detectable and non-trivial influence of climate change in many UK impact sectors already - notably health, agriculture, and infrastructure. We found that heatwaves were the most studied hazard overall, with a unanimous consensus on a strong attributable signal of human-induced climate change in their increased frequency and intensity over the last century. The most notable gap identified overall was in attributing climate-related impacts to human influence, with a few impact studies for only a handful of the hazards assessed. Furthermore, just under half of the 29 hazards were not found to have any UK-relevant attribution studies, with most of the remainder having three or fewer. This review highlights requirements for and opportunities to develop attribution scicnce to meet the needs of the UK. Diversifying hazards and impacts studied, in conjunction with the techniques and approaches used, will undoubtedly benefit the community.

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Regan Mudhar, Dann M. Mitchell, Peter A. Stott, Richard A. Betts. 2024-06-18. Reviewing climate change attribution in UK natural hazards and their impacts. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.12951

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