El Niño is strengthening so quickly that it could make 2026 become Earth’s warmest year on record.

According to new data from Berkeley Earth, there is a 69 % chance that 2026 will become the warmest year on record and a 30 % chance that it will come in at second place behind 2024.

This outlook is a significant increase from the previous month, when Berkeley Earth was only giving 2026 a 12 % chance of beating 2024.

The shift in their outlook is due to last month being the second warmest July on record for global temperatures. Another key factor is the rapid pace at which El Niño is strengthening in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which is giving more confidence to computer models that are suggesting it will become the strongest El Niño on record.

Because El Niño is associated with the warming of sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, it’s presence typically increased global average temperatures. Moreover, stronger El Niño events have a stronger warming influence on the global climate.

Despite the first six months of this year ranking as the third warmest January-to-June on record, the presence of a very strong El Niño in the second half of the year should push the annual average temperature into second or first place by the end of December.

But the influence of this record-breaking El Niño won’t end there. The ongoing effects of El Niño’s vast ocean warmth are likely to make 2027 even warmer than 2026. It is common for the year following El Niño’s formation to set a new global heat record. This happened in 2024, 2016 and 1998, which all followed El Niño and became record-breaking warm years at the time.

According to Berkeley Earth, “because El Niño’s global impact lags its Pacific peak, an even larger warming influence – and a strong chance of a further record – is expected in 2027.”