Science Source
Mann, Michael E., Miller, Sonya K., Rahmstorf, Stefan, Steinman, Byron A., Tingley, Martin
Geophysical Research Letters
Published date August 10, 2017
Geophysical Research Letters
Published date August 10, 2017
Record Temperature Streak Bears Anthropogenic Fingerprint
- Uses a previously developed semi-empirical approach to assess the likelihood of the sequence of consecutive record-breaking temperatures in 2014, 2015, and 2016
- Combines information from historical temperature data and state-of-the-art historical climate model simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5)
- Finds that this sequence of record-breaking temperatures had a negligible (<0.03%) likelihood of occurrence in the absence of anthropogenic warming
- Finds that it was still a rare but not implausible event (roughly 1-3% likelihood) taking anthropogenic warming into effect
- Estimates the probability that three consecutive records would have been observed at some point since 2000 as ~30-50% given anthropogenic warming, and <0.7% in its absence
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