Scientific techniques known as climate attribution can help us discern whether the rise in severe weather events is due to global heating

• Climate crisis to blame for dozens of ‘impossible’ heatwaves, studies reveal

It is a crucial question: is the climate crisis to blame for the extreme weather disasters taking lives and destroying homes around the world. But it has not been an easy one to answer. How much is due to global heating, how much is just the severe weather that has always happened?

The good news is that the scientific techniques used to untangle that question – called climate attribution – are now well established. The bad news is what they reveal: the studies show that the burning of fossil fuels has changed the climate so dramatically that heatwaves, floods and storms are now hitting communities with a severity and frequency never seen during the entire development of human civilisation.