Attribution articles from across Nature Portfolio

Anthropogenic forcing altered the Arctic background state in recent decades and led to a longer, stable Arctic melt season since 2010, while Arctic conditions remain dynamic, with interannual variability superposed on global warming, based on analyses of melt and freeze onset, the surface energy budget and sea ice thickness.

Cloud and water-vapor radiation feedbacks amplified temperatures during the March 2022 Antarctic heatwave, which is likely underrepresented in global climate models, according to pseudo-global warming experiments with the snow-atmospheric coupled model.

This study shows that despite widespread atmospheric moistening under global warming, the Western U.S. has experienced a persistent multidecadal drying trend over the past four decades, sustained by atmospheric subsidence and reduced regional moisture recycling triggered by tropical eastern Pacific cooling.

Short-lived extreme reduction events of Antarctic sea ice cumulatively contribute to 41% of the total seasonal ice retreat, and some of the events are remotely triggered by deep convection over the tropics, revealed by analysis based on reanalysis data.

Anthropogenic aerosols drove the Sahel droughts and later rainfall recovery by altering atmospheric circulation, shown through ensembles of climate model simulations that separate aerosol and greenhouse gas influences.

Editorial summary: Observations show that tropical rainfall changes over the past four decades are driven primarily by shifts in atmospheric circulation rather than increases in atmospheric moisture. Land warming and ongoing desertification in the Northern Hemisphere, together with Indo-Pacific warm pool warming, emerge as key drivers of these hydroclimate changes.

In October 2024, Valencia, Spain, suffered extreme rainfall that triggered devastating flash-floods. Within a few hours, rainfall accumulations exceeded typical annual totals, breaking the national record for one-hour rainfall in Spain. This event is considered the most destructive weather-related disaster in contemporary Spain in terms of human and economic losses. Calvo-Sancho et al. show that human-driven climate warming significantly intensified the storm, making the disaster markedly more destructive than it would have been in the pre-industrial era¹.

An increasing body of evidence has highlighted direct and indirect health implications of oil and gas expansion. Nations that produce oil, gas and petrochemicals must stop placing short-term interests above the health and future of humanity.

An article in Science Advances demonstrates that fire onset has shifted ~45 days earlier on average in California owing to anthropogenic warming.

It has long been recognized that the highest-emitting regions should bear disproportionate responsibility for climate action. Now, a study shows how the highest-income individuals have specifically contributed to climate impacts worldwide.