2026 may surpass 2024 as hottest year on record
El Niño set to push global temperatures to record highs in 2026 and 2027, Berkeley Earth says.
Source: The Business Times Singapore · August 14, 2026 at 12:02 AM · AI-assisted report
Corroborated
KUALA LUMPUR, 14 AUGUST 2026 —
El Niño set to push global temperatures to record highs in 2026 and 2027, Berkeley Earth says.
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The likelihood that 2026 will become the hottest year on record has jumped from 12% to 69% in a month as a powerful El Niño gathers pace, Berkeley Earth said. The non-profit research group said sea temperatures in a key eastern Pacific zone are forecast to rise 4°C above normal, compared with 2.75°C during the 2015-16 El Niño, a level that would reshape global weather patterns.
“It will be giving us weather conditions we would normally expect a decade or more away,” Berkeley Earth chief scientist Robert Rohde said on Aug 13. “It’s going to be a big deal.”
Berkeley Earth’s monthly analysis shows the current El Niño, which began in June, is strengthening faster than earlier models predicted. Rohde said the surge in ocean temperatures will trigger droughts in western and southern Africa, Australia and India, while pushing rainfall higher in the southern United States.
The shift arrives as global temperatures already sit near record highs after a brutally hot July that saw heat domes over the US, wildfires in France and Spain, and record-breaking highs in parts of the US Midwest.
Scientists caution that annual rankings are sensitive to short-term shifts, but the underlying trend remains clear. “El Niño is a giant hammer that the climate gets hit with,” said Berkeley Earth scientist Zeke Hausfather. “It is going to scramble a lot of different things.” Greenhouse gas emissions continue to drive long-term warming regardless of El Niño’s natural cycles.
The economic fallout is already visible. Peru’s anchovy fisheries have halted because warming seas displaced the fish, while emerging markets face compounded pressure from the Iran war. Rohde noted that even Antarctica, which has largely escaped the global heat, is enduring an unusually cold winter. “So much of the world is sweltering that it’s easier to name the place that isn’t,” he said.
The Berkeley Earth findings align with broader data showing July was the hottest or second-hottest month ever recorded across major climate datasets. Rohde said the rapid intensification of El Niño suggests 2027 will set a new high even if 2026 narrowly misses the record.
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