About this episode

The episode explores the field of climate attribution and its implications for understanding extreme weather events and climate damage.

In this episode, Sarah and Iain are joined by Dr Joyce Kimutai, climate attribution scientist at Imperial College London and member of World Weather Attribution (WWA), to unpack one of the most consequential fields in climate science. Joyce explains the world of attribution - quantifying how much human-induced climate change has altered the likelihood or intensity of specific extreme weather events. From the relatively straightforward case of heat waves, where the signal of climate change is now essentially guaranteed, to the far thornier problem of attributing localised flooding in data-sparse regions, the conversation covers both the power and the limits of the science. Joyce illustrates what it means to do attribution science in regions where weather station networks are sparse, records are inconsistent, and data-sharing policies can block access entirely. The show covers why satellite proxies and reanalysis products are not always a reliable substitute when the underlying observations are missing. From all things Loss & Damage, litigation meeting climate science, the use of observations, and the unlikely and unique path that brought Joyce into the field, jump into the…

People in this episode

Hosts: Iain, Sarah

Guest: Dr Joyce Kimutai

Topics covered

• climate change
• extreme weather
• attribution science
• Loss & Damage
• climate litigation
• data challenges

Keywords

• climate attribution
• extreme weather events
• human-induced climate change
• heat waves
• localised flooding
• satellite proxies
• data-sparse regions

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Imperial College London, World Weather Attribution

Places: Bunurong People, Kulin Nation, Ngunnawal, Ngambri

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