100 Years Ago, the Chances of a Year as Hot as 2014 'Were Less Than 1 in 10,000'

Here is the likelihood that Europe would be this hot today without climate change: "It's so small we had trouble computing it."

That's according to Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a climatologist with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) and one of the authors of ​a major new study that investigates the human impact on European temperatures over the last 500 years. The conclusion? Any last traces of uncertainty have been shredded—it wouldn't be this hot without humanity's carbon habit.

In fact, the odds that 2014 would see such scorching temps were increased by a factor of at least 80 by mankind's fossil fuel pollution.

A hundred years ago, before climate change, the chances that Europe would be as hot as it got this year "were less than one in 10,000," van Oldenborgh told me. Same goes as far as 500 years back, to the continent's earliest temperatures records, crude though they were.

"We're outside the realm of uncertainty, for the data from the 1500s," van Oldenborgh said.

The research, conducted in tandem with scientists from Oxford, the University of Melbourne, and the Australian National University, should be considered the final word in putting to rest any doubt that Europe would be as hot today without global warming. All four teams, which examined European temperature records, climate models, and proxies like tree ring data, arrived at the same conclusion: Global warming has increased the odds that we'll see years this warm by a factor of very likely more than 10 to 80.

"What really surprised us very pleasantly was that the models and the observations gave us roughly the same numbers," van Oldenborgh said.

Furthermore, the scientists are now comfortable attributing the additional force of extreme events like record-breaking heat waves to climate change. "We can now reasonably say that the probability of an extreme event has changed with global warming."

While the data pertains to Europe, the research serves as a powerful indicator that the odds will fall in a similar range elsewhere.

"It's yet another confirmation that yes, the globe is warming," van Oldenborgh said, with a gloomy laugh. "But this isn't surprising. We've known that for 30 years."