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Abstract:
We use a previously developed semiempirical approach to assess the likelihood of the sequence of consecutive record‐breaking temperatures in 2014–2016. This approach combines information from historical temperature data and state‐of‐the‐art historical climate model simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). We find that this sequence of record‐breaking temperatures had a negligible (<0.03%) likelihood of occurrence in the absence of anthropogenic warming. It was still a rare but not implausible event (roughly 1–3% likelihood) taking anthropogenic warming into effect. The probability that three consecutive records would have been observed at some point since 2000 is estimated as ~30–50% given anthropogenic warming and <0.7% in its absence. The likelihood of observing the specific level of record warmth recorded during 2016 is no more than ~one‐in‐a‐million neglecting anthropogenic warming, but as high as 27%, i.e., a nearly one‐in‐three chance of occurrence taking anthropogenic warming into account.
