The nation’s preeminent science institution released an anticipated report Thursday indicating that research into the connections between climate change and individual weather disasters have grown stronger over the last decade.
It comes as an obscure panel tasked with writing the report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has been under intense scrutiny from the energy industry, conservative scholars and Republican lawmakers, who argued that the 252-page document is meant to help climate lawsuits against oil and gas companies.
The report does acknowledge a variety of ways that the growing field of research known as extreme event attribution science might be used, including litigation. But it doesn’t endorse climate lawsuits or recommend how the studies should be applied.
“We don’t advocate for any particular application,” said Colorado State University professor Jim Hurrell, the atmospheric scientist who chaired the panel. “We just felt it was necessary to say this is how the science is being used today, and this is how it might be used in the future.”
