GENEVA (AFP) – The El Nino phenomenon building on the Pacific Ocean will boost global temperatures by an additional 0.1 deg C to 0.2 deg C, making the world exceptionally hot for the remainder of 2026 and into early 2027, said the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The year 2026 is already on track to be one of the warmest on record, with temperatures 1.47 deg C above the pre-industrial average between January and September, the UN agency said in its State of the Climate report, released on Monday as the COP31 climate summit kicked off in Turkey.
“We are supercharging our weather and El Nino will be a risk multiplier,” said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo. “El Nino and indeed the state of the global climate in 2026 gives new meaning to the phrase ‘off the charts’.”
Temperatures are expected to rise more than 1.5 deg C above pre-industrial levels in 2026, according to data released last week by observation agency Copernicus.
That threshold was already surpassed in 2024, the hottest year on record, and the UN expects global temperatures to rise above that level as a long-term average.
It forecasts an increase of 1.8 deg C this century in a best-case scenario, which would require significant reductions in the man-made greenhouse gases causing climate change beyond countries’ current commitments.
Even if nations make good on their current emissions promises, the UN warns that the world is on track to warm by 2.6 deg C.
El Nino in 2026 is the strongest on record. The weather phenomenon changes temperature and rain patterns across the globe, altering the likelihood of droughts, floods, heat and other extremes in various regions.
The WMO expects it to persist until February, bringing temperature anomalies of as much as 3.7 deg C in the waters of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, compared with an anomaly of 0.2 deg C recorded in March.
Between 2017 and 2026, sea levels rose an average of 3.9mm a year, compared with 2.4mm a year between 1993 and 2002, the WMO said.
Ocean heat has continued to increase in 2026, according to the agency, indicating an acceleration in the rate at which the Earth system is gaining heat.
Hotter oceans expand, contributing to rising sea levels, while melting sea ice is another factor. Arctic sea ice reached the lowest or second-lowest maximum extent on record in March 2026, the WMO found.
Extreme weather events affected renewable energy differently in various parts of the world in 2025, according to the report.
Across Europe, solar-power production was above the average and wind-power production below it, while electricity demand driven by temperature was lower than average. Meanwhile, central and southern Africa saw below-average hydropower-related precipitation and higher demand.
Separately, the number of countries that reported having early-warning systems rose to 136 in 2025 from 56 a decade earlier. That brings the world closer to the UN’s target to have early-warning systems covering the planet’s entire population by the end of 2027.