If there is data available on current impacts, then the analyst can dig deeper into current impacts addressing the tasks of trend detection in the data (see Toolbox section on Detection of trends via statistical methods), and attributing this trend to anthropogenic climate change or to other drivers (see Toolbox section on Attribution of impacts). Trend detection may involve both socio-economic and biophysical systems, as is the case with detecting trends in damages from tropical storms. This is discussed in detail in the Toolbox section Describing current impacts.

Detected trends in impacts can be attributed to climate change or other drivers either using process-based models or building statistical models of the relationship between observed impacts and a number of explanatory variables. Most scholarly work in CCVIA focuses on the explanation of impacts through biophysical variables and are labeled here impact attribution. Some work also tries to explain impacts through socio-economic variables. These approaches are sometimes also called vulnerability or adaptive capacity indicators in the literature, however they differ from the vulnerability indicators described above in that the latter ones do not consider data on observed impacts (Yohe and Tol 2002; Hinkel 2011a). In order to avoid confusion, we only use the term vulnerability indicator for those approaches that do not use data on observed impacts, as described above.

When no trend is discernable in the data or the trend cannot be attributed to climate change, then impact analysis cannot be carried further and the identification of vulnerability must exclusively rely on vulnerability and capacity indication (see the decision tree on choosing approaches to capacity analysis and the Toolbox section on Vulnerability indication).