CO₂-induced climate change assessment for the extreme 2022 Pakistan rainfall using seasonal forecasts

While it is widely believed that the intense rainfall in summer 2022 over Pakistan was substantially exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change^1,2, climate models struggled to confirm this^3,4. Using a high-resolution operational seasonal forecasting system that successfully predicted the extreme wet conditions, we perform counterfactual experiments simulating pre-industrial and future conditions. Both experiments also exhibit strong anomalous rainfall, indicating a limited role of CO₂-induced forcing. We attribute 10% of the total rainfall to historical increases in CO₂ and ocean temperature. However, further increases in the future suggest a weak mean precipitation reduction but with increased variability. By decomposing rainfall and large-scale circulation into CO₂ and SST-related signals, we illustrate a tendency for these signals to compensate each other in future scenarios. This suggests that historical CO₂ impacts may not reliably predict future responses. Accurately capturing local dynamics is therefore essential for regional climate adaptation planning and for informing loss and damage discussions.