2027 could briefly feel like the climate of 2037. A new analysis by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather gives next year a 95% chance of becoming Earth’s hottest on record, with global temperatures around 1.76°C above preindustrial levels — about 0.29°C hotter than the recent warming trend alone would suggest.
The reason is an exceptionally powerful El Niño arriving on top of long-term greenhouse warming. Hausfather’s middle 50% forecast range is 1.67–1.85°C, equivalent to temporarily jumping roughly 7 to 13 years ahead of the recent temperature trend. “I’m not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures”, he wrote.
The Pacific is already behaving extraordinarily: temperatures in the central equatorial Pacific have broken records for 75 consecutive days and could rise more than 4°C above average by December, more than a degree beyond the previous record. Even 2026 has a 48% chance of becoming the warmest year on record; Jim Hansen expects it to do so, before 2027 overtakes it.
The spike should ease afterwards — Hausfather expects 2028 to be cooler — but the underlying warming continues. His stark description of the longer-term trend: “human emissions are adding a permanent El Niño worth of heat to the climate system each decade”.
A hotter atmosphere can also carry more water vapour, at roughly 7% more per degree Celsius, meaning 2027 could set a global moisture record as well and increase the conditions associated with extreme rainfall. For a brief period, this El Niño may effectively move the whole planet into temperatures otherwise expected roughly a decade from now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026/08/13/record-el-nio-could-fast-forward-planets-temperature-by-decade/