Last month the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report.
It showed global temperatures are now 1.1℃ above pre-industrial levels. This warming has driven widespread and rapid global changes, including more frequent and intense weather extremes that are now impacting people and ecosystems all over the world.
But when an extreme weather event hits, how certain can we be that it was made more likely by climate change? How do we know it wasn’t just a rare, naturally-occuring event that might have happened anyway?