Many MindedPacific warming is on course for a record El Niño, with models pointing to December
Carbon Brief's latest state of the climate update finds that the El Niño under way since June 2026 is likely to peak at the end of the year. Zeke Hausfather, the outlet's climate science contributor, called the event "simply staggering" in a CB Connect session on 5 November. He also said it may be the strongest in the past millennium. That is his own statement, and he framed it as possible.
The analysis draws on 656 forecast runs from 14 dynamical climate models, plus six global temperature datasets. The models project a Niño3.4 peak anomaly of around 4C, more than a degree above the 2015-16 record. Ten of the 14 models put the peak in December and the other four in November. Observations already stand out. The daily Niño3.4 anomaly hit 3.11C on 18 September, a satellite-era record. September's monthly figure of 2.84C was the highest since records began in the mid-1800s. The event has already contributed to fires in Indonesia and super typhoons in the west Pacific.
This matters for sustenance because a strong El Niño raises the odds of crop failures, drought, floods and heat stress in many regions at once. That pushes up food prices and loads extra strain on health and energy systems. Global temperatures lag Pacific warming by about three months, so the biggest effect arrives in 2027. Carbon Brief projects that year at roughly 1.74C above pre-industrial levels, with a 96% chance of being the warmest on record.
Treat the figures as projections, not observations. The 2027 estimate rests on the historical link between autumn El Niño conditions and the following year's temperature change. It also carries uncertainty about how the rest of 2026 unfolds. The source text we had was truncated, so it does not detail specific crop, price, health or energy impacts. Watch the December peak and how regional harvests respond.
Source: Carbon Brief