Back in the late 1990âs I started studying the biological impacts of climate change and have followed the climate models and the associated literature quite closely. There is a relatively young branch of statistical analyses that attempts to attribute single events to ongoing climate alterations. Below are a few references that come up on a google scholar (scholar.google.com) search of keywords âclimate change event attributionâ. While not necessarily written for the lay public, the point is, unequivocally yes, we are able to apply statistical methods to assess likelihood that any one event is caused by climate change.
But that really wasnât your question. Your question was can/should it be documented. While scientists, such as myself, are in the early stages of figuring out how to harness the power of community science, such as iNaturalist, the power to do so resides entirely on the data available. So, absolutely you should document ANYTHING that seems like a climate-related phenomenon. Some examples of seemingly innocuous things that may be relevant: first frog call, first plant flowering, first tree turning autumn colors, new bird where itâs never been observed, snakes encountered in the middle of winter, a dead bird on the seashore. Seasons are changing and we cannot easily predict which observations will be the ones that illustrate the change weâre trying to document. We cannot predict which will be the last observation of a species. For example, golden toad populations simultaneously crashed in 1987 when El Nino caused precipitation changes and likely caused failure of reproduction and subsequent recruitment. The science took over a decade to figure this out (see Pounds et al. 1999 below) as well as any number of conference presentations, symposia, etc. Early on the literature was, who knows? For example, see Barinaga, 1990. But as data accumulated the pattern became obvious and unequivocal. Data comes in different forms and iNat is a great source of the undirected, unfocused, unexpected, but represents the power of community to generate data in a new and novel way.
Who knows what we would have known if we werenât limited to the scientific community relying on their own data to determine these events. We cannot know which will be the last observation of an endangered species. Nor can we know which observations will be of value to the scientific community. However, we do know that lack of information will prevent any such understanding and thatâs the gap this site fills. It is an undirected source of information that with time and effort will enable scientists to harness information to gain knowledge and understanding. ANY observation you add might do that, and you may never know which observations have value and which are just more of the same.
Barinaga, Marcia. âWhere Have All the Froggies Gone? It has taken a decade, but herpetologists are hopping up and down about declining amphibian populations.â Science 247.4946 (1990): 1033-1034.
Hulme, Mike. âAttributing weather extremes to âclimate changeâ A review.â Progress in Physical Geography 38.4 (2014): 499-511.
Otto, Friederike EL. âAttribution of Extreme Events to Climate Change.â Annual Review of Environment and Resources 48 (2023): 813-828.
Pounds, J. Alan, Michael PL Fogden, and John H. Campbell. âBiological response to climate change on a tropical mountain.â Nature 398.6728 (1999): 611-615.
Stott, Peter A., et al. âAttribution of extreme weather and climateârelated events.â Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 7.1 (2016): 23-41.
Trenberth, Kevin E., John T. Fasullo, and Theodore G. Shepherd. âAttribution of climate extreme events.â Nature Climate Change 5.8 (2015): 725-730.
