Consecutive record-breaking high temperatures marked the handover from hiatus to accelerated warming

Closely following the hiatus warming period, two astonishing high temperature records reached in 2014 and 2015 consecutively. To investigate the occurrence features of record-breaking high temperatures in recent years, a new index focusing the frequency of the top 10 high annual mean temperatures was defined in this study. Analyses based on this index shown that record-breaking high temperatures occurred over most regions of the globe with a salient increasing trend after 1960 s, even during the so-called hiatus period. Overlapped on the ongoing background warming trend and the interdecadal climate variabilities, the El Niño events, particularly the strong ones, can make a significant contribution to the occurrence of high temperatures on interannual timescale. High temperatures associated with El Niño events mainly occurred during the winter annual period. As the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) struggled back to its positive phase since 2014, the global warming returned back to a new accelerated warming period, marked by the record-breaking high temperatures in 2014. Intensified by the super strong El Niño, successive high records occurred in 2015 and 2016. Higher frequencies of record high temperatures would occur in the near future because the PDO tends to maintain a continuously positive phase.