As the planet warms and the Climate Crisis accelerates faster than scientists predicted, extreme weather events from floods to fires have turned into an annual disaster season that is only going to get worse.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that hopes to stay within the Paris Agreement goal of a 1.5C increase in temperatures are “almost dead” and that under current policies the temperature rise is on course to be a catastrophic 2.6C. Already the year 2024 is almost certain to set a new record as the hottest year in documented history, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

A new issue of a comprehensive map from Carbon Brief has been tracking these events and collates data from the last 20 years.

In 2017, Carbon Brief first introduced the interactive map charting attribution studies, which aim to measure the role of anthropogenic warming in extreme weather. This resource, now cited in peer-reviewed research, provides the most comprehensive documentation of its kind.

The latest version of the map, released in November, includes over 600 studies covering nearly 750 extreme weather events and trends. Its findings are stark: 74% of the events were either intensified or made more likely due to human-caused climate change. Moreover, some extremes were deemed “virtually impossible” without human influence.

Conversely, only 9% of the cases were mitigated by climate change. For the remaining 17%, 10% showed no human impact, while 7% were inconclusive due to limited data.

“Extreme event attribution has become an invaluable tool for scientists to connect specific weather events to broader climate trends,” said Carbon Brief.

The concept of attribution emerged in 2004, with a groundbreaking study linking the 2003 European heatwave – responsible for over 70,000 deaths – to a doubling of risk caused by human activity. The findings were hailed globally and laid the groundwork for this burgeoning field.

Now in its sixth update, the map visually represents findings by region, using coloured circles to indicate the impact of climate change: red for more severe, blue for less, yellow for no influence, and grey for inconclusive results.

As climate impacts accelerate, such tools provide policymakers and researchers with critical insights into the human fingerprints on extreme weather patterns.