The emergence of a strong El Niño weather pattern this year in a world that is warming as a result of human-caused climate change could fuel “unprecedented” weather extremes, climate scientists have warned.
Meteorologists expect El Niño – the natural climate phenomenon characterised by unusually warm sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean – to develop as early as this month. Some forecasters say that this time around the event could become particularly powerful.
Scientists say the combination of El Niño and rising global temperatures could push 2026 to either the warmest or second-warmest year on record. A previous El Niño helped drive average global temperatures in 2024 to a record 1.55C above preindustrial levels.
Researchers warn that a strong El Niño risks supercharging extreme weather conditions, contributing to more severe fires and droughts in some regions and storms and floods in others.
El Niño meets global warming
Friederike Otto, professor in climate science at Imperial College London, said El Niño itself is “not the reason to freak out” but rather the fact that it is now happening on an increasingly warmer baseline.
“El Niño is a natural phenomenon that comes and goes,” she told journalists this week. “What makes it so dramatic is not the event itself and whether it’s a ‘Super El Niño’ or not, but that it is happening in a dramatically changing climate.”
“The records will still be broken because of human-induced climate change and the continued burning of fossil fuels,” Otto added.
The World Meteorological Organization will issue its next update on the prospects for an El Niño in late May, which it said will provide more robust guidance for decision-making on how to protect people and nature from associated impacts.
Even before the likely arrival of the El Niño pattern, 2026 has already been an “extraordinary” year for weather extremes, scientists at the World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group said.
Sea surface temperatures neared all-time highs in April, while Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level for a second-year running. In March, the United States saw a record-breaking heatwave that would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change, according to WWA analysis.
Dramatic wildfire risk
Across the globe, the wildfire season got off to a dramatic start. Record-breaking fires in Western Africa and the Sahel, as well as big outbreaks in India, Southeast Asia and parts of China, contributed to the world recording its largest burned area ever for the January-April period, according to Theodore Keeping, a WWA researcher.
He noted that the emergence of a powerful El Niño event could have a major effect on supercharging wildfires by increasing the likelihood of seeing “severe” hot and dry conditions in Australia, the US and Canada, as well as the Amazon rainforest.
“The likelihood of harmful extreme fires potentially could be the highest we have seen in recent history, if a strong El Niño does develop,” Keeping added.
