Higher warming predictions for 2026 and 2027
An update to my December estimates of global temperatures over the next two years.
Zeke Hausfather
April 30, 2026
A summary of this article from The Climate Brink.
Back in December I provided some initial projections of where both 2026 and 2027 global mean surface temperatures might end up.
A lot has happened since then. We’ve gotten the first three months of data for 2026 (and have a good sense of where April 2026 will end up in reanalysis data.
More importantly, models are converging on a doozy of an El Niño event developing in the latter part of 2026, with the latest multi-model median projection of a peak anomaly of 2.7C in the ENSO3.4 region of the tropical Pacific. While the prediction remains uncertain (we remain within the “spring predictability barrier” when it’s historically hard to predict ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) development), this would put the 2026/2027 roughly on par with the “super” El Niño the world experienced in 2015/2016.
I’ve updated the models I use for both my 2026 and 2027 projections. The headline numbers are in the figure below: the estimate for 2026 has risen from 1.41C (with a range of 1.27C to 1.55C) to 1.46C (1.33C to 1.58C). The 2027 estimate has similarly increased from 1.57C (1.3C to 1.76C) to 1.61C (1.31C to 1.9C).
Overall, the development of a strong El Niño event in 2026 (and its effects on 2027 temperatures) have bumped my predictions up a bit from where they were at the start of the year.
But 2026 remains more likely than not to end up as the second warmest year on record (~50% chance) and has a non-trivial chance of being the warmest year (~19%) with a somewhat larger chance (28%) of being above 1.5C.
2027, by contrast, is likely (~73% chance) to be the warmest year on record and has a 77% chance to be above 1.5C. My updated estimate central estimate (1.61C) remains a bit lower than James Hansen’s team (1.7C), but its consistent with the size of the year-over-year bumps we’ve seen in past strong El Niño events.
RED = Predicted
BLACK = Measured
1.46 C
1.61 C