Table 2.

Assessment of the likelihood of further changes in the early and late twenty-first century

Phenomenon and direction of trend	Early twenty-first century	Late twenty-first century
Warmer and/or fewer cold days and nights over most land areas	Likely	Virtually certain
Warmer and/or more frequent hot days and nights over most land areas	Likely	Virtually certain
Warm spells/heat waves: frequency and/or duration increases over most land areas	Not formally assessed	Very likely
Heavy precipitation events: increase in the frequency, intensity, and/or amount of heavy precipitation	Likely over many land areas	Very likely over most of the midlatitude land masses and over wet tropical regions
Increases in intensity and/or duration of drought	Low confidence	Likely (medium confidence) on a regional to global scale
Increases in intense tropical cyclone activity	Low confidence	More likely than not in the western North Pacific and North Atlantic
Increased incidence and/or magnitude of extreme high sea level	Likely	Very likely

Table reproduced from Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (30).