Is climate science strong enough for the courts?

Today's climate models allow us to simulate the state of the climate system under different sets of "forcings": solar variability, volcanic eruptions, greenhouse gas emissions, aerosol emissions, even nutty idea like big like big orbiting mirrors. The recent advances in model resolution are allowing climate scientists to do improved climate change "detection and attribution". This is where we model output under different forcings with observed weather, climate and/or ecological data, to get at the burning question:

How likely was the event -- a strong hurricane season, a heat wave, a flood, or a mass coral bleaching -- with and without the emissions of greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution?

Note that climate scientists don't ask: "Is the event caused by climate change?". That particular question is essentially impossible to answer. Weather and climate is multi-factorial -- no event is caused solely by any one forcing. But we can use observed data and modelling to examine the statistical likelihood of an event under different climate scenarios.

In the Guardian, a UK scientist argues that the advances in detection and attribution may pave the way for litgation:

Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade. He said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important."

Ignoring for now questions of just who one would sue (oil companies? governments?), the key questions are in the numbers.

First, what degree of change in the probability of an event is sufficient to apportion blame? 10% more likely? 100% more likely? Or would courts assign damages based on the change in probability of the event (10% increase, so you're responsible for 10% of the damages)?

Second, what exactly is the burden of proof in a court of law? Is p<0.05 the same as "beyond a reasonable doubt"?

[Hat tip to Stoat on this]