The UK Met Office has warned that an unusually severe El Niño event could trigger the highest temperatures seen in over a century, bringing intense global climate impacts and potentially making 2027 the warmest year on record.
According to meteorologists, extreme weather events ranging from severe droughts to heavy storms are expected to intensify across the globe, with notable shifts anticipated from Northwestern Europe to the Western Pacific.
“We have never seen anything like this in our prediction models,” said Adam Scaife, Head of Long-Range Prediction at the UK Met Office, in an interview with the BBC. “We are projecting the strongest El Niño event in over a century, with sea surface temperature anomalies in parts of the Pacific exceeding 3°C—an unprecedented surge in modern climate records.”
Scaife highlighted that tropical regions, South America, and the Western Pacific face heightened risks of severe drought, while Western and Northwestern Europe could see increased storm activity and heavy rainfall continuing through November.
Understanding El Niño
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern characterized by the periodic warming of surface waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean off the South American coast. Occurring every 2 to 7 years and typically lasting 9 to 12 months, the phenomenon disrupts prevailing wind and ocean currents, altering weather patterns globally and temporarily boosting global average temperatures.
These natural cycles are further amplified by underlying ocean warming driven by atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions. The last major El Niño phase was recorded between the summer of 2023 and the spring of 2024.
Record Ocean Temperatures
The warning coincides with data released on Saturday, August 22, 2026, by the European Copernicus Climate Change Service, which revealed that global daily average sea surface temperatures recently surged to 21.1°C, approaching the previous all-time record of 21.9°C set in March 2024.
Copernicus scientists attributed the sustained high ocean temperatures to ongoing climate change alongside developing El Niño conditions. Because oceans absorb roughly 90% of the excess heat generated by human activities—primarily the burning of fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal—persistently warm waters pose severe risks to marine ecosystems and coastal communities.
When sea surface temperatures remain elevated over prolonged periods, they alter atmospheric dynamics worldwide, creating hotter, drier conditions in some regions while driving cooler, wetter extremes in others.
