Dorrington et al. (2026) Dynamically‐Informed Extreme Event Attribution Using Circulation Imprints

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-04-09
• Authors: Joshua Dorrington, Gabriele Messori
• DOI: 10.1029/2025gl116869

Research Groups

Not specified in abstract.

Short Summary

This paper introduces a novel extreme event attribution approach that isolates dynamical contributions from other factors to changing extreme event probability, demonstrating its application to recent wildfires, floods, and storms, and finding varying climate change impacts across these event types.

Objective

• To develop and apply a novel extreme event attribution approach that isolates dynamical contributions from thermodynamic and other factors influencing the probability of extreme events.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Global (implied by the study of diverse events like Los Angeles wildfires, Spanish floods, and Storm Ciarán, which typically affects Europe).
• Temporal Scale: Focus on recent high-impact extreme events (2023, 2024, 2025) within the context of long-term climate change.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: A novel, flexible framework linking event-specific, multivariate circulation imprints to impact-relevant hazard indices. This approach disaggregates dynamical contributions (occurrence changes in extreme-favoring imprints) from thermodynamic and other contributions (alterations in the conversion of dynamical forcing into surface extremes).
• Data sources: Not specified in the abstract, but likely includes climate model outputs, reanalysis data, and/or observational data for circulation patterns and hazard indices.

Main Results

• Climate change shows a clear contribution to the increased probability of events similar to the Los Angeles wildfires.
• Climate change contributes to a decline in the probability of events similar to Storm Ciarán.
• No apparent role of climate change was found for events similar to the Spanish floods.
• The novel circulation imprint approach identifies an increased role for dynamical changes in extreme event attribution compared to previous methods.

Contributions

• Presents a novel extreme event attribution approach capable of explicitly isolating dynamical contributions from other factors (thermodynamic, etc.) to extreme event probability.
• Introduces a flexible framework that links multivariate circulation imprints directly to impact-relevant hazard indices.
• Provides new insights into the relative importance of dynamical changes in extreme event attribution, demonstrating an increased role compared to existing literature.

Funding

Not specified in abstract.

Citation

@article{Dorrington2026DynamicallyInformed,
  author = {Dorrington, Joshua and Messori, Gabriele},
  title = {Dynamically‐Informed Extreme Event Attribution Using Circulation Imprints},
  journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.1029/2025gl116869},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2025gl116869}
}