2026 Now Likely Warmest Year on Record
A record-strength El Niño is driving the forecast, with the peak due in late 2026 and 2027 projected warmer still.
Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Environmental
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Berkeley Earth now gives 2026 a 96 per cent chance of being the warmest year on record, up from 2.5 per cent in May and 69 per cent in August. This is a forecast from temperature analysis, not a confirmed record, and the year is still in progress.
Why it matters
The rise tracks a strong El Niño, which reached its strongest level since record-keeping began in 1950, surpassing the 2015-16 event by a wide margin. El Niño releases heat stored in the ocean, so the forecast shift reflects both a natural cycle and a warming baseline that long-term ocean warming is driving.
Berkeley Earth's 96 per cent probability is a model-based forecast, not an observed annual record, and NOAA's outlook diverges sharply, giving 2026 only 0.1 per cent odds of being warmest. Niño 3.4 sea-surface temperatures at 3.5 C above average are the metric used to rate El Niño strength, and this is the strongest event recorded since 1950; the year-end ranking remains unresolved until the full-year temperature record is compiled.
The players
Berkeley Earth
An independent temperature-analysis group that publishes global warming datasets and probabilistic year-ranking forecasts.
U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information
The U.S. federal agency whose NOAA climate division publishes global temperature records and seasonal outlooks.
Carbon Brief
A UK-based climate science and energy publication that runs its own projections of global temperature trends.
The details
El Niño is a periodic warming of surface waters in the central and eastern tropical Pacific, and the Niño 3.4 region is the standard patch of ocean used to gauge its intensity. Warm water stored beneath the surface is released during the event, pushing extra heat into the atmosphere and raising global average temperatures, usually with a lag of several months. As the ocean warms, it also holds less carbon dioxide, which leaves more of that gas in the air and adds to the warming trend.
Timeline
May 2026: Berkeley Earth gave 2026 a 2.5 per cent chance of being the warmest year.
August 2026: Berkeley Earth's warmest-year chance rose to 69 per cent.
September 2026: Berkeley Earth reported another month above 1.5 C, continuing a run that began in July.
November or December 2026: El Niño's peak is forecast.
2027: Carbon Brief projects the year at around 1.7 C above pre-industrial levels, with a 96 per cent chance of being warmest.
The Tech Race
Forecasting groups such as Berkeley Earth, NOAA and Carbon Brief are now competing to produce the most accurate year-ranking outlooks, and their numbers have diverged widely this year. The 2015-16 El Niño set the previous benchmark for strength, and this event has now beaten it, making it the reference point against which these models are judged.
A record-strength El Niño tends to push up global temperatures with a lag of several months, so 2027 is widely expected to run even warmer than 2026. The effects reach daily life through heat, weather extremes and the planning decisions that follow from them, though the forecasts in this story do not specify particular regional impacts.
The takeaway
Warm ocean heat released by El Niño is pushing 2026 toward a likely record year and 2027 toward a higher baseline. Watch the El Niño peak in November or December 2026 and the final annual temperature ranking as the verifiable markers of whether this trajectory holds.
What happens next
El Niño's peak is forecast for November or December 2026, and the year's final warmest-year ranking will be settled after the full-year temperature record is compiled.
Further reading
For the broader forces behind these shifts, explore our Environmental coverage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by CBC News.
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