evidence: Record-breaking and -shattering probabilities in our changing climate deviate from this course15. It has been shown that record-shattering heat becomes more likely with increasing warming trends16, exemplified by events such as the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave where local temperature records were broken by more than 5 °C17,18, equivalent to a record jump of about one standard deviation and anomalies of more than four standard deviations19. For extreme heat, the local warming rate of maximum temperature—and not the warming level—drives record-shattering probability16. [...] Lagos, finally, exhibits a clearly increasing normalised μ-trend and increasing σ throughout the 21st century (Fig. 3j, m). This increasing normalised μ-trend—associated with high climatological precipitation and the strong scaling of extreme precipitation with temperature in the tropics29—means the full 5yRx1d distribution shifts upward fast enough to lead to increasingly frequent record shattering, even in the absence of increasing variability. Also for Lagos, however, the strong increase in σ alone—associated with deep tropical convection and increasing atmospheric water vapour37—impacts record shattering more strongly than the changes in μ alone.