The El Niño climate phenomenon is “supersizing before our eyes”, the UN has said. The event is near certain to shatter temperature records, according to the latest forecasts.
The El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere where temperatures are already rising rapidly due to global heating. The combination means 2027 is set to “blow apart” the record and be the hottest year ever recorded.
The rising heat from the El Niño is already having impacts, from worsening wildfires in Indonesia to the weakening of vital monsoon rains in India. The impacts will spread globally, from greater fire risk in Australia to more intense floods in South America. The World Food Programme said in August that the El Niño was likely to push about 50 million people into acute hunger.
The climate crisis, caused by pollution from fossil fuels, is already supercharging extreme weather and killing people, with the most extreme heatwave ever recorded hitting Europe this summer and leading to at least 35,000 deaths. The El Niño will ratchet up the impacts even further, with the scale of the event having been described as “truly mind-blowing” and a “Godzilla-level” event.
El Niño is a natural climate cycle where wind changes over the Pacific lead to rising ocean temperatures and the transfer of huge amounts of heat to the atmosphere. The most recent data, from Monday, shows the temperature of the ocean at the heart of El Niño at 2.6C above the 30-year average. That is already close to the highest anomaly ever recorded in the satellite data era, 3.1C in 2015, with months to go before the peak is expected.
That peak is forecast to reach about 4C in November, according to the average of 14 different models. Data from analysis of corals, tree rings and historical documents suggest no El Niño has reached this level in the last millennium, said Zeke Hausfather, a climate analyst. Any temperature anomaly above 0.5C is classed as an El Niño.
A further concern is that recent research shows global heating is now intensifying El Niño cycles, which then in turn intensify the impacts of the climate crisis.
“El Niño is being supersized before our eyes,” said UN secretary general António Guterres. “The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters, and those waters are heating up. The world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people. We must win that race.”
Forecast temperature anomalies
“El Niño has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world,” said Celeste Saulo, Secretary-General of the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO). “We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies.”
“Never before in the 50-year history of the WMO have we launched such a major mobilisation with national meteorological and hydrological services who are on the frontline of delivering the forecasts and services to save lives and livelihoods. We have no time to lose.”
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The WMO El Niño updates are the world’s most authoritative forecasts and are based on a consensus of models from climate prediction centres around the world. The latest update, published on Thursday, said the El Niño was firmly established and would intensify into a “very strong event” in the coming months, with “big impacts” including floods, drought and extreme heat continuing well into 2027.
In some areas, subsurface ocean temperatures were an extraordinary 8C above average during July and early August.
Chris Jaccarini, of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit in the UK, said: “Extreme [weather] around the world has driven up food prices, hitting the poorest hardest. This is not just the food we import, but also what we grow at home.
“After five heatwaves and widespread drought, British arable farmers are now facing the worst harvest on record in 2026. And yet, without action, these could be the good years. Unless we rapidly cut emissions and strengthen resilience, climate change impact will continue to worsen with El Niño turbocharging the trend every few years.”
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