Difficulties in Attribution
At the time of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, attribution was possible for a number of observed changes in the climate (see effects of global warming). However, attribution was found to be more difficult when assessing changes over smaller regions (less than continental scale) and over short time periods (less than 50 years). Over larger regions, averaging reduces natural variability of the climate, making detection and attribution easier.
Read more about this topic: Attribution Of Recent Climate Change
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